I split this article off from Military logistics, which I am still working on. This is one of those high-level articles that a traditional encyclopaedia has, but where the Wikipedia is deficient. I have tried to make a start with this article, which I created by splitting the history section off from the parent article, rewriting, and adding material, mainly to the front and the back. Almost all the article is now my work.
There are good reasons why these sort of top-level articles do not get the attention that many readers would expect, the major one being that they are so hard to write. This article has to cover 2,000 years of military history. Ideally, it would be a summary of its subarticles, but none of them currently exist. The task of this article is therefore to cover important developments without getting into to much detail, and it degenerating into a catalogue of battles and wars.
A conscious effort was made to avoid making the article Euro-centric, and to incorporate examples from around the world. Hawkeye7(discuss)18:55, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Chucking in a few peanuts, mostly on the really old stuff, for now:
Feudalism in the lead: something of a dirty word among medieval scholars, who haven't really been happy with the idea of "Feudalism" as a single coherent Thing for a few decades now. Certainly, the idea of calling it "a system" (rather than, at the most charitable, a series of slightly-ad-hoc systems with some similarities but also important differences) is really quite dated. Articles and books on big topics like this often end up with blind-spots when it comes to the specifics of individual disciplines: suggest something like "in medieval Europe, responsibility for military logistics was often delegated to the magnates of individual households (and mercenary companies?), who would supply their own troops".
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century there was the shift from a centrally organised army to a combination of military forces made up of local troops: if we're (admirably and correctly) going to avoid Eurocentricism, we need to put sentences like this into geographic context: I doubt the fall of Rome had much impact in China or North America.
Thinking a little on this, I'm not sure the basic point here is valid. Firstly, the Roman empire didn't (all) fall in the fifth century, and the Byzantinists are now getting increasingly comfortable and consistent at calling their subject the "(Eastern) Roman Empire" until the 15th century. Secondly, the Roman army wasn't straightforwardly a single, centralised organisation in the fourth and fifth centuries: units were increasingly tied to the areas in which they served and recruited from those areas, particularly from children of soldiers - in many ways not all that different to your textbook "feudal" model (see lots of work on this at Banna (Birdoswald). Thirdly, I'm not sure what the distinction here is between a "centrally organised army" and one "made up of local troops": isn't everyone local to somewhere? Professional troops were fairly rare after 500Thinking on it, that's not true either: professional militaries, perhaps, but they were also pretty rare before that, and certainly people serving by obligation were part of the show in the "late Roman" army and indeed very much the norm outside the high Roman professional army and perhaps some of the Hellenistic monarchies. UndercoverClassicistT·C21:14, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On the same note, the lead still reads as pretty Euro-heavy to me, especially in the second paragraph, which is explicitly about Europe only but also the only material on a three-century period.
Is there anything to add to the lead about logistics post 1948?
I'd like to see something done about gendered language in the very early sections: for instance, Neolithic armies ... rarely exceeded 20,000 men (given how little we know about Neolithic warfare in general, I don't think we can say that all Neolithic societies had no fighting women, or indeed no alternative gender categories), and A king or warlord might use his army...
I still see rarely exceeded 20,000 men in the lead. More generally, there's a fairly regular use of "men" for "soldiers", "warriors", "troops", "combatants" and so on, which I think should be avoided. Yes, it's a commonplace/cliché in (particularly older) military writing and yes, it's more-or-less accurate for most of our time periods, but we don't do that for other situations where the same is true: nobody would write about the "privileges granted by the Roman senate to its men", for example. Given the general nature of this field I think this is a case where we have to be particularly proactive about systemic bias. UndercoverClassicistT·C21:14, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On which: 20,000 seems very big for the time we're talking about: I'd be interested to know what that's based on. The biggest mass-death sites I've seen from the Neolithic have bodies in the low hundreds, which doesn't really seem to fit with armies that massive wandering around. I'm also curious about where all these people are coming from, and who's feeding them when they're on the move: a really big Neolithic site had a population of a couple of thousand people total.
I was looking through Prehistoric warfare to see if I could find a better source.
Roman soldiers are generally called legionaries in English (see Ngrams); legionnaire is best kept for the French.
Seems odd to pass over the whole Mycenaean/Classical world until Alexander, and then devote an entire paragraph to the guy. There's also a bit of a buried lead here: if Philip was banning carts, it implies that someone was previously using them. (There's another problem here: we say that Alexander banned carts, but then that he used them to lug his siege engines around: this sounds like the commonplace in classical military historiography where the historian has a virtuous commander force the soldiers to carry their own gear to restore discipline or general manliness) In particular, I'm sure much work has been done on how the Persian armies of Xerxes and Darius I were supplied.
Those in the field will know better, but some that come up on a quick search:
Quite a few useful things in this big Blackwell companion: Hassan's chapter on the army and logistics would seem the obvious starting point. Henkelmann and Jacobs have a chapter on communication in the empire too. These books normally carry a lot of good bibliography as well.
This 2013 article discusses connectivity and logistics within the Achaemenid empire in general
This article on logistics in the Ancient Med discusses Persia at some length, and is generally healthily and usefully sceptical about ancient empires acting in all-seeing, board-game-like grand-strategic ways.
This one is by the ever-sensible Roel Konijnendijk, whose work is generally a good corrective to outdated views of ancient warfare, and talks about logistics as a major factor in the Persian defeat of 479,
This article looks slightly dated to me, but discusses the Persian campaigns of 490 and 480-479 with a lot of focus on their logistical demands and failures.
Another useful book might be this Oxford handbook: Engels, whose work from the 80s is cited in the article, has a chapter on logistics there. There's a few other similar companions on the market, either to Greek, Roman or to Ancient warfare, that would be worth a look.
Again, I'm not suggesting putting everything in here, but this article needs to be a judicious summary of that everything, and therefore we need to start from a position of knowing what the whole topic looks like before we can summarise and cut down. UndercoverClassicistT·C21:14, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Suggest pointing out that the Romans were by no means the first to construct a network of roads for military and other logistics: the Persians got there a few centuries earlier.
Appreciated, though we now have the weird situation that the Romans get all the focus and the credit, whereas the Persians - who did it first - get relegated to being one of many in a list of "and the rest". I think this is another respect in which taking another swing at this section with the (Graeco-)Persian context in mind would help. UndercoverClassicistT·C21:14, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Again, on Eurocentrism: we make a brief gesture to China, India and South America about roads, but otherwise our conception of Antiquity basically happens between the Alps and the Euphrates: we did briefly wander into Persia, but only when we had some Macedonian armies to follow there. We've named a whole lot of influential commanders, empires and societies from Greece, Rome and areas often associated with them: what are the equivalents (say) in Egypt, the Far East and the Americas?
Moving a bit outside my area, the Medieval section is curiously early Medieval (and quite strongly Carolingian): in particular, it makes a slightly odd move to Crecy, then back to the ninth century, then to the Mongols (though it isn't massively clear on the chronology of the latter two), then out to the wider world (good), then back to Big Charlie. Given that the Early Modern section doesn't pick up until 1530 (a rather late date, in my view: I think most would use 1453 or 1492), it's odd that the High and Late Middle Ages have received so little treatment: there's loads in Anne Curry's recent-ish book on Agincourt, for example, on how the English and French were supplied, and that's very different to the "king calls the lords, lords call their vassals and sort their own provisions" model that we sketched in the lead.
I think our sketch of "the Vikings" gives them too much coherency (as if we've written from Alfred's perspective rather than Guthrum's): Viking was something you did, not something you were, and Scandinavians hardly spent the whole period getting along and working together.
Did anything interesting happen in western Asia and north Africa during the early medieval period?
I notice at the moment that the "Antiquity" section has six sources cited, only two of which are 21st century: that's a big topic divided between very few voices/perspectives.
Certainly looking at these two sections, I wonder if there's an element of WP:WRITEITFIRST here: there's a difficult balance between summary style and comprehensiveness to be struck, and it might be difficult to establish it without a bigger, more detailed and more global account of military logistics in the ancient and medieval worlds. UndercoverClassicistT·C17:18, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, but more importantly, it calls out for being a judicious, well-balanced, (as far as possible) error and systemic-bias-free summary of what those articles wouldorshould say. There's no problem if those articles don't exist (yet), but for an article like this to be FA quality, it does need to be written with a good, up-to-date understanding of what its field is. For this one, as you'll know much better than me, that field is massive and has the problem of being both extremely broad and having depth and details which are extremely important. I'm going to stick down an oppose at the moment, purely because of how long I can see this review is getting already: it isn't fair to turn this into an extended peer review and I do think the sections on Antiquity and the Medieval period need a fairly major rework to make them up to date with current scholarship and representative of the world picture. I don't think that sort of rework is within the scope of a normal FAC; however, I am absolutely open to revisiting that !vote if the situation does change. UndercoverClassicistT·C21:14, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
QueryHawkeye7, could you glance over the article Operations Research (particularly the World War II section), and the sources there, and have a look at whether your sources give OR (known as Operational Research in the UK) a due-weight role in the evolution of logistics during WWII and ongoing ? The role of OR in military logistics, particularly in WWII, has always been emphasized in the field, and it has a large place in West Point Military Academy training. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:27, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment. Sorry Hawkeye but this has been open for more than four weeks now and hasn't gained a single support and even has an oppose. I don't think it makes sense to keep this open any longer now. The usual two-week wait before a new nomination will apply. FrB.TG (talk) 16:24, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mark Murphy is the current president of the Green Bay Packers, an American football team in the National Football League (NFL). Unlike most NFL teams, the Packers are owned by a publicly-held, non-profit corporation (Green Bay Packers, Inc.) that is led by an elected board of directors. Murphy was elected to the presidency of the organization in 2007, assuming the roles in 2008. Prior to this role, he played for the Washington Redskins for 8 seasons, received his undergrad, masters and JD degrees, served as an athletic director for two colleges and worked for the NFL Players Association.
The use of non-independent sources (Commanders.com, Packers.com, ColgateAthletics.com, and NFL.com) and questionable ones (BuffaloSportsHallFame.com) makes me think this article isn't ready for prime time --GuerilleroParlez Moi21:22, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Guerillero, thank you for your input and happy to work with you if there are specific statements that would be better backed up by a different source or removed altogether. That said, context matters; none of the statements supported by the sources you identified are contentious or questionable, nor are any of the sources unduly praiseworthy/harsh. Within the realm of reporting on sports figures, many details just aren't reported on by scholarly sources. That said, I'll take a look and see if some of the existing sources can replace some of the ones you noted. « Gonzo fan2007(talk) @ 15:29, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Guerillero, just as a note of some progress: I replaced or removed all instances of Commanders.com and BuffaloSportsHallFame.com. I also replaced all instances of NFL.com except for one and Packers.com except for two. Still working on ColgateAthletics.com. I'm guessing you have concerns about the American.edu source as well? I'll see what I can do with those. « Gonzo fan2007(talk) @ 18:42, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Guerillero, more progress: I have removed or replaced American.edu and ColgateAthletics.com. Regarding this NFL.com source, are you opposed to its inclusion in this article. It covers two statements regarding the changes the NFL made due to Covid-19, both of which are not controversial. It is also authored by Judy Battista, a former New York Times journalist with a good reputation. Still looking on the Packers.com sources. « Gonzo fan2007(talk) @ 18:41, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"a position he would hold until 2007" => "a position he held until 2007"
"The Packers won Super Bowl XLV in 2011, made the playoffs eight straight seasons from 2009 to 2016 and Rodgers won four MVP awards" => "The Packers won Super Bowl XLV in 2011 and made the playoffs eight straight seasons from 2009 to 2016, and Rodgers won four MVP awards"
"to receive a "white letter, as the outstanding performer in his sport, for all three" sports" - that looks weird with the last word outside the quote marks. If the word wasn't in the original quote, I'd be tempted to present it as "to receive a "white letter, as the outstanding performer in his sport, for all three [sports]"."
"Halfway through his freshmen year" - freshmAn, surely? I'd also link this as it is not a commonly understood word outside the United States
"During his junior year" - link this term too
"as the Redskins starting safety" => "as the Redskins' starting safety"
"17-straight points" - no reason for that hyphen
"The 1983 NFL season was Murphy's finest of his career though," => "The 1983 NFL season was Murphy's finest of his career, though,"
"The Redskins would go on to play in" => "The Redskins went on to play in"
"During his time with the Redskins, Murphy was the Redskins' representative" => "During his time with the Redskins, Murphy was the team's representative" (less repetitive)
"his prominent role in the strike shortened led to" - this doesn't seem to make sense, are there words missing?
"he worked on player counseling program," => either "he worked on a player counseling program," or "he worked on player counseling programs,"
"Murphy returned to his alma mater in 1992 " - I would re-name the university as it's been a long time since it was mentioned before
"with two bowl games" - what is a "bowl game"?
"the Packers announced Murphy as the organization's ele president" - what's an "ele president"?
"The lock out ended in July 2011" - isn't lockout one word?
Fort McCoy image caption is not a complete sentence so shouldn't have a full stop
"This mixed use development would provide new commercial space" - in the lead "mixed use" had a hyphen....?
"The 2017 season saw the Packers consecutive playoff appearance streak end" => "The 2017 season saw the Packers' consecutive playoff appearance streak end"
"to be the Packers 15th head coach" => "to be the Packers' 15th head coach"
"one of his worst statistical seasons as the Packers starting quarterback" => "one of his worst statistical seasons as the Packers' starting quarterback"
"in this case Love, as the Packers new starting quarterback" => "in this case Love, as the Packers' new starting quarterback"
"The Packers record since he became president" => "The Packers' record since he became president"
"Murphy noted in his remaining years as president, he would" => "Murphy noted that in his remaining years as president he would"
You changed "the organization's ele president" to "the organization's elenth president". As "elenth" isn't a word, I presume that's meant to say "eleventh".......? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:24, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
1. Article — "Murphy worked for a year for the Street Law Clinic after graduating with Juris Doctor in 1988, where he received an award for developing a program educating inmates on the law. He then was hired as a trial attorney for the United States Department of Justice from 1989 to 1992."
Where does the source mention that he worked at the Street Law Clinic "for a year"?
Likewise, I don't see the source mentioning that he worked at the Street Law Clinic (SLC) "after" graduating. All it says is that he received that award we mention "during" his time at SLC.
Are we treating "a law degree" (from source) as "Juris Doctor"? (from article). If we have a source that makes it a bit more explicit, it would be better. Else, I'd maybe IAR on this particular one.
2. Article — "... including basketball, volleyball, softball, and hockey."
I can't see the source mentioning "hockey". What is mentions in "ice hockey". Not an expert on sports (have worked on just2 sporting articles), so I am unaware if treating "ice hockey" as "hockey" is a standard practice or not.
3. Pretty similar, I feel:
Article: On the football side ... with two bowl games under Murphy
Source: On the football field ... in two bowl games during Murphy's tenure
4. Article — "Murphy married his wife Laurie after they met at Colgate University and they have four children together."
The source does not specify the year of their marriage. Neither does the source specify whether that "event" took place before or after their meeting at the Colgate University. All it says is that his wife "is a Colgate graduate".
5. Article — "Murphy also donated $250,000 to 'causes in Wisconsin that support social justice and racial equality' following"
The source just says that he "pledged" to donate. From my reading of the cited source, we are unaware whether he actually donated that amount or now. However, the way we present that in the article, it very clearly says that he has donated. There is a difference in pledging and donating.
Apologies for doing this, but unfortunately (and sadly), I have to oppose this nomination. I have spot checked a total of seven citations, of which, five are problematic. This is a biography of a living person, we need to be extra careful about this, and that can be reflected in my above comments; I have been a bit more nitpicky than I usually am (due to this being a blp), but many of the above mentioned issues should really not have existed. Most of the issues I mention are not difficult to find, any spot-checker with access to the sources can find them; it took me no more than 40 minutes to find and compile these issues. Based on the review and problematic spot checks (5 of 7), I unfortunately do not have confidence in rest 85 citations which I did not check, and therefore did not find any need to check more citations. I am willing to revisit my oppose on the grounds that (1) All the 92 citations in the article be checked by the nominator for source-to-text integrity (2) Some other independent reviewer conducts and passes a spot-check. Since it is really hard to do this top-to-bottom check within the time and boundations of the FA process, I also suggest withdrawal. However, if you are willing to do the same during the FA process, I am willing to strike the "suggesting withdrawal" part. Feel free to ping me for any help, of if you ever need me to do more spot-checks outside of this process. Thanks for all your work on this article and other articles! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 19:15, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Kavyansh.Singh, comments #2, #3, #4, and #5 have been addressed. Hockey in the US generally means "ice hockey", but that is a good comment for clarifying. #3 is borderline close paraphrasing (there is no other way to say "two bowl games"). #4 I changed to note that it was just her alma mater (again, a minor word choice clarification, its implied they met at their alma mater, but again, needs to be clarified). #5 is again a minor word choice. Yes there is a big difference between pledging and actually giving, but this was likely more a slip of the tongue ("keyboard") then anything else. #1 is the only one I see that is a definite miss on a spot check, and that came about from the comment above about changing sources from Packers.com to other more independent sources. I just did not do a good enough job of rewording the sentence to better match the new source. Let me take a look at that one and your larger comment about spot checks and get back to you. « Gonzo fan2007(talk) @ 20:34, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Coord note -- Tks AJ. Many 'citation/page needed' instances as well that would need cleaning up. Also the nominator has only one edit to the article, so this is a procedural close according to FAC guidelines in any case. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:46, 17 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about businessman Bruton Smith, who dabbled in numerous fields but primarily in motorsports. Considered to be one of the most influential and polarizing people in motorsports, he had a long and storied career that lasted from the 1950s until 2022, being the founder of both Speedway Motorsports and Sonic Automotive. The article passed a successful GA nomination in July of this year; I managed to bring it from an issue-riddled page to GA over the span of a few weeks. I’ve been pondering on when to send it to FA; I think the time is now right. This is my first FA nomination, so any and all feedback is welcomed and appreciated. Cheers, and carpe diem! Nascar9919 (he/him • t • c) 15:58, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You should be aware that every aspect of the article will be rigorously examined, including the standard of prose; breadth, standard and formatting of sources; image licencing; and adherence to the Manual of Style.
Dealing with reviewers
Try to deal with comments in a timely and constructive fashion
Remember the reviewers are constructively giving their opinion on the article
Keep calm when dealing with criticism of any aspect of the article
Don't take the criticism personally: reviewers are examining the article – not you!
How to get the best from the process
Reviewing the work of others is a good way to get a grasp of the process from the other side
Reviewing also increases the likelihood that others will review your nomination – although remember there is no quid pro quo at FAC.
"Early in his life, Smith showed discontent on living on a farm, stating that while he had the essentials to live, his family had a lack of wealth. According to Smith, his days consisted of working from "sunup to sundown", and he felt that he did not earn enough money for the job he did." The source has '"I was born and raised on a farm," Smith says. "You have food, clothing, and shelter, but you never have any money. And I never did like that. I did not like it. You worked from sunup to sundown, but you did not see the rewards."' This is paraphrased enough to avoid problems with WP:CLOP, but it's a bit stilted as a result. For example, "showed discontent on living on a farm", and "had a lack of wealth" -- "were poor" would be more straightforward. I think it's slightly inaccurate too -- working on a family farm means he almost certainly earned no money personally, so "money for the job he did" isn't right. How about "Growing up on a farm meant Smith's family had a home and enough to eat, but despite working from "sunup to sundown" they had little money. Smith "never did like that", and by the age of nine had decided he would leave the farm.
"Smith initially wanted to become a boxer, wanting to become the middleweight champion of the world at the age of 11." The source doesn't say this was his first childhood dream, though it might have been of course. It would be safer to cut "initially". It would be more natural to state his age in the first part of the sentence; I assume you're not doing that to avoid close paraphrasing. How about "When he was 11, Smith began practicing with a home-made punching bag, and dreamed of becoming the middleweight champion of the world."
The mention of the trucking company in the source is pretty minor; seems like he wanted to own a train, and a trucking company, but these weren't dreams in the same class as five years hitting a punching bag. I'd downplay these a little if you do want to mention them, perhaps giving a bit more of the background -- e.g. "He recalled having "crazy ideas" as a child: he saw one movie in which a tycoon owned a train, and another in which Jimmy Cagney owned a trucking company, and for a while decided he also wanted to own a train and a trucking company".
"However, his mother opposed the idea of Smith racing, beginning to pray that Smith stopped racing. Smith, stating that he couldn't "fight [his] mom and God", stopped racing". Needs a copyedit: very repetitive structure.
"In the same year, France and Smith discussed merging their sanctioning bodies and came to a tentative agreement on the issue; however, Smith was drafted into the United States Army to fight in the Korean War in January 1951, becoming a paratrooper. When Smith returned to civilian life two years later, he found that mismanagement in his absence had caused the NSCRA to dissolve." The source doesn't cover most of this as far as I can see.
"the 1960 World 600 that was held on June 19": this is cited to a paper that appeared on June 15. It would be best to cite something after the event; weather and other issues can cause cancellations so we can't definitely assert this happened with this source.
Most of the paragraph starting "By the late 1950s" is cited to a single source. Some issues:
"newer, more modern facilities being built, such as Darlington Raceway": the source doesn't say it was new or modern; it says it was a "large paved track". I'm guessing you know from your knowledge of the sport that it was indeed new and modern, but we need more than this as a source.
"While Smith initially had the upper hand against Turner, in 1958": I think this is sourced to "The competition seemed one-sided: a revered racer and three track owners versus a 32-year-old dirt-track upstart", but I don't think that works -- it may have seemed one-sided at the start but that doesn't mean Smith had built any advantage in the competition, just that it looked as though he would.
"heir to his family's successful timber business": I think this is sourced to "the papers described him as a millionaire lumber man". That doesn't say it was a family business and in any case it would be better to say what the article says, which is that Smith thought that -- he called him because he had heard he was rich.
"Knowing Turner did not have the funds to build his own speedway, compounded with the fact that Turner had struggled to sell the 300,000 shares needed to start his project, Smith pledged to sell 100,000 of the shares by himself": sourced to "[Smith knew that Turner] didn't even have enough money to get started. When Turner's group struggled selling the 300,00 shares needed to start its project, Smith offered to sell 100,000 of the shares himself". This is insufficiently paraphrased.
'To further compound problems, reducing the value of Piper Glen would "seriously erode" the net worth of North Carolina Federal.[83] The failure of Piper Glen, along with numerous other problems with real estate ventures and bad loans to apartment developers, caused North Carolina Federal to lose $29.4 million in 15 months.' Why "would" in the first sentence? The first sentence is mostly repeated as part of the second sentence anyway.
"grabbing a fireplace poker and proceeding to destroy a portrait of her according to court records". The source has "grabbed a fireplace poker and destroyed a portrait of her, court records show". This is too closely paraphrased.
Leaning oppose. The above points are taken from a fairly random skim through the article; if I can find these issues on a quick look I think the article needs a pass for paraphrasing and a copyedit. I'm not going to suggest withdrawal, since I have not read the article thoroughly, but if the issues really are throughout the article I think it's going to be time-consuming to fix them, and a withdrawal and later resubmission might be the right next step. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:54, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey! Sorry for the late response; I was out at State Championships for my club swim team. Happy that at least someone looked through it after it being so dormant for a while. Thank you for the review; I'm very sorry to hear that the paraphrasing and copyediting standards aren't up to par. If I had a struggle with anything, it's that; but I've been trying to improve it in general. I'll do my best to make the necessary edits and source additions and hopefully strike down the oppose. I've made some of the edits mentioned; hope the paraphrasing issue is better. Will get back to it as I've got to prepare for the next day of State Championships. Feel free to give this a second look to see if my changes have indeed addressed your concerns. Cheers, and carpe diem! Nascar9919 (he/him • t • c) 04:25, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No worries about the speed of response; you're faster than some! I'm going to wait and see what other reviewers think and will revisit if they feel the problems are addressed. I think the article might benefit from a third party copyedit, perhaps by WP:GOCE; and you might find it worthwhile to look back through the sourcing and see if there are other cases where a reviewer might feel the text does not accurately reflect the source material. I haven't conducted a full source spotcheck, but as noted by FrB.TG above one needs to be done before the article can be promoted, so you might want to get ahead of any problems that review might find. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:47, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This has been open for nearly three weeks and has yet to show any sign of moving towards a consensus to promote. Unless it attracts considerable movement towards this over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:54, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Gog the Mild: Hello, and thanks for the note. I've got a lot in the next coming weeks, with high school finals coming up in probably the most important semester with my high school career, along with other swimming things I need to take care of. With that said, I think it's best to archive this now so I have no time pressure to fix the copyediting issues in the article, resubmitting when time allows me. Will this be all right? I think it'll lead to a stronger article. Cheers, and carpe diem! Nascar9919 (he/him • t • c) 03:05, 16 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about a state park in southeastern Tennessee that was the site of the last capital of the Cherokee Nation in the eastern United States before the Cherokee removal, without a doubt one of the most tragic and shameful events in American history. Here, from 1832 to 1838, the Cherokee fought to retain their ancestral lands, before they were forcibly removed under the enforcement of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Arguably the location where the Trail of Tears really began, today Red Clay State Historic Park preserves one of the most historically significant sites in the state of Tennessee and Southeastern United States. Bneu2013 (talk) 05:13, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The photo is, yes - but what is shown in the photo is not. US copyright law does not include freedom of panorama for 3D works other than buildings, so we need to include some sort of tag indicating the status of that work. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:45, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Tentative oppose (with sadness), primarily on comprehensiveness. Looking at other FAs on state parks, there is much more detail on climate, geology, the site itself. I think you ought to be able to add information in regards to these factors. For instance, there is only one sentence worth of information about the Blue Hole Spring, which seems significant to the point that you ought to be able to say more. Have you been able to access/find the NRHP nomination form? That may be a valuable source. Has there been anything else scholarly published since 1980? I also have some concerns about the sourcing-- for instance, FN 38 needs a page number, what makes FN 40 (hosted at tnstateparks.com) reliable, FNs 14 and 15 ought to use the same citation style. It's an interesting article, and you've done a really great job bringing this up from where it was, but I think more is needed. Suggest maybe a peer review before nom. Eddie891TalkWork16:32, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Eddie891: - this is primarily a historic park, not a park about a natural feature. Other than the Blue Hole Spring, there really aren't any "interesting" features to talk about. There are a few sentences about the geography and physiography of the park (which is in no way unique to the area it is located), as well as endangered species. This is also a relatively small park at just 263 acres. Also, have you read the article thoroughly? There is more than one sentence about the Blue Hole Spring. tnstateparks.com is an official website of the Tennessee State government, and Lillard and Ehle use different citation styles because the latter is only cited twice in the article. The NRHP nomination form should be accessible by following the link. Finally, I have researched this park extensively, and have not found any scholarly studies on the site since 1980 other than the 2019 study that is cited. Bneu2013 (talk) 19:24, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're right about the Blue Hole Spring, I got distracted in read-through. Apologies on that. My point was more that if you're going to say something is "iconic", I'd expect to see some explanation why, beyond that present in the article. If it is widely represented, what shows that? Do quantifiable numbers of people visit the spring? Is its image widely published? Is it well-known? See MOS:PUFFERY. Information like climate factors should be accessible, and is, imo, relevant to any park with oudoors recreation activities. However, are you sure there's nothing else? The first thing I found on a search was this 300+ page 2021 PhD thesis by a seemingly qualified author that could arguably be reliable per WP:SCHOLARSHIP and at the very least probably has some other potential sources. For Lillard and Ehle, you should pick between sfn or harvp. Your link to FN 1 doesn't point to the NRHP form, at least for me. Eddie891TalkWork21:14, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
this book suggests that Kelton, Cherokee Medicine may also hold more information, and itself includes the quote "Creeks nevertheless suggest that Red Clay is their territory", something I don't see mentioned in the article. What about this guidebook?Eddie891TalkWork21:25, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to strike my oppose because there's definitely less written on this park than I thought there was, the nominator is clearly editing in good faith, and peer review would probably have been an exercise in futility based upon how few people head over there to comment. I would still like to hear back about some of these points, however. Eddie891TalkWork21:35, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If I remember right, Corn's book refers to the spring as "iconic", but I'll have to find my copy. If I had to guess why, it's because the blue hue of the spring is a rarity in this area. I believe there's also something in there about the mineralogical explanation for the blue hue; I'll try to add a sentence about that. The thesis, which I must admit I have not read, is by the same person who authored the study that is cited in the article, but I'll take a look at it. With regards to whether there are "other sources" about this park, there are a lot of books and scholarly works that briefly mention it, such as books about the history of Native Americans or Tennessee for example. But I know of no other books, studies, etc., that extensively go into depth about the history of this site, other than the ones that are with cited in this article, or are the partial sources for sources in the article. Also, with regards to the "Creeks nevertheless suggest that Red Clay is their territory", this may refer to the state of Georgia (or another location), which is known for its red clay soils. It certainly does not refer to the council grounds. I the meantime, I will take a look later today at the dissertation and see if I can find any other sources about the history of this place, as well as make the changes you suggested. Bneu2013 (talk) 22:23, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Update - actually, I had totally forgot about this, but there was a minor controversy related to the establishment of the state park where the Creeks were critical of the park because they had inhabitated the area prior to the Cherokee. I don't remember any thing about the council grounds being an important site to them, however; I think it was just the area. But I will take a look at this. On a related note, I have actually wondered about the history of the site prior to the relocation of the Cherokee Nation (i.e., when did Red Clay become an important site to the Cherokee). As far as I have been able to find, information about this is scant, so it's likely that we really don't know. But I haven't seen any sources that explicitly say this. Maybe the thesis also has some information about this too. Bneu2013 (talk) 22:35, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
re "other sources", I just think it kinda odd we don't have a single book source (to my eyes, on a skim) from the past 20 years, especially for citing history of a Native American tribe, the studies of which have been greatly improved in recent decades. Can you replace any of the sources on those topics with more modern book sources, even if they aren't as in depth? For instance, a 40-year old source is probably not the most recent scholarship we can use to cite Before the arrival of the first European settlers, the area was inhabited by the Cherokees, an Iroquoian-speaking people believed to have migrated south from the Great Lakes area, where other Iroquoian tribes arose. Their territory encompassed parts of present-day western North Carolina, western South Carolina, East Tennessee, northern Georgia, and northern Alabama.. I'd want to see the most up-to date stuff as possible where we can. If you're having trouble getting access to more recent publications, WP:REX is a great place to ask. Eddie891TalkWork00:33, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You can look it up if you'd like. With regards to the books that are 40+ years old, those were both written by local historians, and are primarily about the area, not the history of the Cherokee. I can definitely find more up-to-date sources for the latter, even though generic facts like the one above have been known for a very long time. I shouldn't have trouble finding any of this. Bneu2013 (talk) 16:20, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that local historians are good sources for the local history, just think the Cherokee history can be replaced with more up-to-date sourcing, especially because it likely shouldn't be too hard to do. Eddie891TalkWork16:26, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Update - Eddie891 - just to let you know, I am currently reading Shelton's thesis, and as such will have my changes made in the next few hours. I'll let you know when I'm done. Bneu2013 (talk) 00:06, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I continue my objection to google maps as a high-quality reliable source. There should be a map published by the federal, state, county, or local government that shows the same thing.
I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you. If you object to Google Maps as a "high-quality reliable source", then I wouldn't expect you to use it to navigate. But I will replace with a USGS topo map. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:19, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Update - I've replaced the GM with USGS, using it to cite forest cover. Shelton is now used to cite the boundaries and roads in the park. I do agree that USGS is a far superior source than GM for physical features, but I do maintain that the latter should be allowed to cite things like roads. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:38, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why is Minges 1998 a high-quality reliable source? us-data.org looks like his personal website to me
No; no articles from the Cleveland Daily Banner prior to 1998 are not available online. These were accessed on microfilm at a library. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:19, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It is a SPS by an unknown author. We can't just its reliability. The rank of the university is neither here nor there because I would have the same objection to a similar PDF hosted on ox.ac.uk or mit.edu --In actu (Guerillero)Parlez Moi13:18, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am reviewing the citations now, but I do not agree that all of these are problems or that this should be archived early. I will update when I am finished. Bneu2013 (talk) 23:22, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Given the issues on sourcing, can I suggest this is withdrawn and worked on away from FAC before being returned? There is no downside to this step and the article would be in a better shape for a smoother run at FAC? - SchroCat (talk) 16:30, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. After careful consideration, I would like to withdraw this nomination. While I do think the sourcing issues are a bit overblown, they do need some work. Also it looks like I'm not going to be able to be as active over the next few weeks as I'd hoped, so I should probably wait. Bneu2013 (talk) 00:42, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Parliament Hill is home to Canada's government. It contains the Houses of Parliament, the Supreme Court, the Library of Parliament, and other important buildings. Thanks to Reidgreg for his detailed GAN review more than 2 years ago (crazy how time flies, eh?) — Aknell4 (talk·contribs) 18:56, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiAknell4 and thank you for your nomination to FAC. A few pointers on the process and how to get the best from it:
What to expect
As a first time nominator at FAC, the nominated article will need to pass a source-to-text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing in addition to all of the usual requirements.
You should be aware that every aspect of the article will be rigorously examined, including the standard of prose; breadth, standard and formatting of sources; image licencing; and adherence to the Manual of Style.
Dealing with reviewers
Try to deal with comments in a timely and constructive fashion.
Remember that reviewers are constructively giving their opinion on the article.
Keep calm when dealing with criticism of any aspect of the article.
Don't take the criticism personally: reviewers are examining the article – not you!
How to get the best from the process
Reviewing the work of others is a good way to get a grasp of the process from the other side.
Reviewing other FACs also increases the likelihood that others will review your nomination – although remember there is no quid pro quo at FAC.
File:S-Macdonald-sm.jpg has contradictory licensing information: the Permission field says its in the public domain, but the tag is CC. Which is correct? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:10, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You write in the lead, "It accommodates a suite of Gothic revival buildings whose architectural elements are of national symbolic importance, including the Parliament of Canada."... but I cannot find anywhere else in the body of the text where you use "National" or "symbolic" in this sense.
"The Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS) is responsible for law enforcement on Parliament Hill and in the parliamentary precinct" YOu write this in the lead, but don't use the abbreviation in the text and don't state this in the text either, only in the lead
Welcome to FAC. I'm sorry to say that I don't quite think this article is FA-standard yet. It's hard to define, but after a little bit of thought I think that there is a general pattern of disorganisation, almost certainly because of a reliance on disparate online pages rather than individual high-quality reliable sources. I'll provide a brief outline of my thinking below#.
The lead section primarily summarizes the history section; per WP:LEAD, it should summarize the Grounds and name section as well. This is a GA requirement.
The only part of the lead that does deal with the grounds and name section is the sentence "Parliament Hill attracts approximately three million visitors each year", also featuring prominently in the infobox. The source for this statement dates to 2007.
The "Fire, incidents, and renovations" subsection, sourced to unconnected web pages, feels disjointed. "Incidents" are described in varying detail—one shooting incident names the perpetrator but no-one else, while the other includes significant unnecessary detail, such as the names of everyone but the perpetrator. They are separated by a paragraph on a memorial and commemorating royalty, which feels rather out of place. I would recommend that the "incidents" be separated from information about two reconstructions, and that they be organised thematically.
The "Parliament Buildings" subsection does not adequately expand on the information already present in the history section.
There are a fair few occasions where prose is unnecessary or too unclear. E.g. "marking their journeys to the interior of the continent" is unnecessary; "for which 298 drawings were submitted. The number of entries was reduced to three" does not mean what you want it to be.
Everything in "Further reading" should probably be used as a source. The lack of books and peer-reviewed articles raises questions about the breath of research done. I recommend that the coords archive this to allow for the the nominator to do more research. -- GuerilleroParlez Moi21:12, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Based on he above I'll be archiving this shortly. I see there was a Peer Review a few months ago but it was pretty brief and another might be warranted. Aknell, you'd also be eligible to try the FAC mentoring scheme. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 16:08, 14 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is DeLancey W. Gill, a D.C. watercolor landscape painter and prolific Smithsonian photographer of Native Americans. His work ties in pretty heavily to how Native Americans were seen in contemporary documentation, especially less savory understandings like phrenology. Generalissima (talk) 05:20, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiGeneralissima and thank you for your nomination to FAC. A few pointers on the process and how to get the best from it:
What to expect
As a first time nominator at FAC, the nominated article will need to pass a source-to-text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing in addition to all of the usual requirements.
You should be aware that every aspect of the article will be rigorously examined, including the standard of prose; breadth, standard and formatting of sources; image licencing; and adherence to the Manual of Style.
Dealing with reviewers
Try to deal with comments in a timely and constructive fashion.
Remember that reviewers are constructively giving their opinion on the article.
Keep calm when dealing with criticism of any aspect of the article.
Don't take the criticism personally: reviewers are examining the article – not you!
How to get the best from the process
Reviewing the work of others is a good way to get a grasp of the process from the other side.
Reviewing other FACs also increases the likelihood that others will review your nomination – although remember there is no quid pro quo at FAC.
Congrats on your first FAC! Putting myself down here for comments. I usually get back to it within a week, but hassle me if I let it slide.
Here we go:
Lead
Why link drafting and landscape painting but not photography?
"Characterized as precise and exact in his landscapes" I'm not entirely sure this phrasing works, although I'm not sure how to rephrase it.
Not sure about "In this duty". "In this role" perhaps
"As well as in BAE...". This whole sentence is a bit knotted up. You could trim the "as well as in" bit and say "Gill's photography appeared in X, Y, and Z" (or similar)
"Gill's photographic work" is repeated in the next sentence, it should be revised in one of them
I might revise or split that final sentence. It's a long one and you've got some passive voice going on. "Contemporary critics regarded Gill's work as strong and pictorialist" might work for the opener. It's also somewhat ambiguous what strong means in this context, paired with pictorialist - a fancy way of saying "good work" or a technical term?
Early life
Please, god, do sfns or some other thing for sources where you've cited different pages in the same source. Ref 1 needs it especially badly given how reliant you are on it. It is...somewhat unfair to expect people to have to skim or ctrl+F an entire 17 page article to verify source-text integrity.
Link Washington, D.C. in the body (generally if you mention something in lead and body, you link it the first time in each)
Nitpick but his dad was a merchant too, that's probably worth mentioning for background
I find the same thing Vati did wrt the paraphrase about the ironwork. It's not clear that he designed those things, the source says he "rendered" them, as in he drew them in a blueprint. They're not quite the same.
"especially focused" you can probably ditch "especially" here as redundant to "focused"
"considerable amount of local acclaim" vs the source saying "established a reputation" - is it clear that the reputation was strictly local? I'm not reading that, especially considering he had exhibited in New York. (By the way - why not mention that in the article? Seems relevant.)
"a Brooklyn reviewer" do we know who?
The split between paragraphs 2 and 3 is awkward. I would either merge them into one large para all about painting in general, or take the last sentence in 2 and add it to 3 so you have one para entirely about critical reception.
When was Gill hired? How was his career in the USGS? The citation implies it was successful - promotions and raises for a few years - but we go right to him getting Holmes's job with no indication of how that happened (and note that Glenn says it's almost all due to Holmes's patronage)
"Gill was tasked to succeed" - "Gill succeeded". You may want to check out WP:REDEX for some ideas about removing superfluous words/phrases from your writing - the less distance between the reader and the content, the better
Also, why did Gill get Holmes's job?
You can also merge this with the next sentence for smoother flow
"John Wesley Powell, in a dual role as director of the USGS..." I don't think this sentence is quite a correct reading of the source, which says "During those days, when John Wesley Powell was director of both the USGS and the BAE, work for one often meant additional duties with the other. Gill thus became supervisor of illustrations of the BAE, but without additional salary." It's not clear that Powell tasked Gill with this specifically. It reads to me more like, if you were the supervisor of one, you wound up being the supervisor of the other, a condition that would have been true for Holmes as well.
"lithics" could use explanation in-text. Even substituting "stone tools" would be fine - until I clicked, I assumed it meant some type of photography he had encountered for the first time
Fixed things up per your very thorough review of the initial sections. I will try to resolve the citation situation tomorrow - I need to get used to sfns anyhow. -Generalissima (talk) 06:48, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Image captions which are not complete sentences (eg the Mouth of James Creek one) should not have full stops
"William Henry Holmes, a fellow watercolor painter and chief of illustration" => "William Henry Holmes, a fellow watercolor painter and the chief of illustration" (existing wording makes it sounds like he was a "fellow chief of illustration")
"came to greatly respect Gill's artistic work, who was tasked" - I think "came to greatly respect the artistic work of Gill, who was tasked" reads more smoothly
"Gill accounted for minutia" => "Gill accounted for minutiae"
"Government photography of native delegations to Washington, D.C. began in the 1860s and 1870s. The Smithsonian geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden requesting in 1874 for the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to send delegations to his office to be photographed." - this doesn't work grammatically as two separate sentences but would if you use a comma to join them together as one
"measuring greatly disliked by native subjects[1]," - ref should go after comma
"living in Washington at Beveridge House. Beveridge House served" - any way to avoid this repetition?
When he was five, his father was killed in action in service of the Confederate Army. When he was fourteen, his mother and stepfather moved to Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory. Maybe combine with a semicolon? Right now, two sentences are starting with the same word.
the ruins of the Ancestral Puebloan Pueblo Bonito Is there a way to phrase this so as to avoid a WP:SEAOFBLUE issue as at present? There is one other back-to-back link at "Otoe / breechclout" later.
sent to Washington, D.C. during Probably can remove the "D.C.", but if it needs to stay, an MOS:GEOCOMMA is missing here.
(a glyph substituting for signature) maybe "a signature"?
The lead section and article presently conflict on the date of the postage stamp. 1922 or 1923?
He later married Katharine Schley Hemmick on January 2, 1905, with whom he had one additional child. Reword, because Gill didn't have a child with January 2, 1905.
He taught classes at the Corcoran School of Art and the Art Students League of Washington, and collected antique art, including rugs and East Asian porcelain. The first comma is unnecessary as there is only one subject. See WP:CINS.
I came in here with a neutral eye a couple days ago, and have been looking through the article since.
Prose concerns -- seeking to racially classify indigenous peoples due to their skull and facial proportions ("due to"?), the structuring of Personal life (e.g. with whom he had one additional child, when "additional" isn't used elsewhere and where the word seems superfluous), one incident where (is "incident" the right term here? that has implications of an uproar/reaction, which the article gives no impression of), having one daughter, suffragist and librarian Minna P. Gill (the false title debate is controversial, but here its absence makes the sentence double back, in the same way you see in some Oxford comma jokes).
Source-text -- cite 13 is supporting a lot of strongly-worded statements, yet the article does not mention Gill. No hits for "Kickapoo" either, and "Dakota"'s two responses are about the state of South Dakota. Cite 1 supports some but not all of what cite 13 is being used for, but substantially downplays Gill's role in this compared to his contemporaries. his specialty was rendering 'ornamental iron, tile floors, and linear perspective' in cite 1 is paraphrased to designing ornamental ironwork and tiles. He was noted for his abilities in capturing linear perspective, which extrapolates both the proportion of his work that was this and the success of it in ways unsupported by the source, and doesn't mention anyone to be "noting" this. Anthropometric measurements, otherwise taken from casts and other physical measuring greatly disliked by native subjects extrapolates this from a mention that some subjects rejected it, later followed up by mentioning that it was fairly common nonetheless, and that the photos were used alongside it rather than the replacement implied here.
Gaps from sources -- cite 1 engages more with how Gill interacted with the phrenological and ethnological cross-purposes, which the article touches on a lot less despite this being fairly core to the subject. The article gives the impression that he mostly abandoned other artforms after beginning photography, which the source doesn't agree with and indeed talks about works he continued to be commissioned for. There's little talk of Gill's own intent or his influence on how he photographed, which again cite 1 talks more about (e.g. discussing his control over what appeared where, his curatorship, etc) -- the article touches on this with how he edited images, but I was surprised to read the cite and see how much more detail it went to, considering the length of this article.
Oppose at this juncture, unfortunately. The prose concerns are samples; the article could use another look-over prosewise. I'm really concerned by cite 13 -- given some of the information seems to be elsewhere I'm sure it's citable, but there are already significant content concerns with that paragraph, and when I checked it to trace down the correct implication of "incident" I turned up nothing. There are parts of the article that are hard to parse, and comparing them with cite 1 makes me uncertain how representative they are of the subject. Vaticidalprophet09:04, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Having reviewed this at PR, I feel obliged to reiterate my assessment from there that this does generally read and feel like a good GA: in particular, I don't really have the reassuring sense of comprehensiveness that I'd hope to get from an FA. The prose often reads as if it's skimming quite lightly over material where there might or should be much more to say.
A few more concrete comments:
The formatting in the references is very inconsistent: almost any system is fine, but it's best to pick one and stick with it.
"Critique" means "assessment and feedback"; we mean "criticism".
As noted at PR, I don't really see comprehensiveness here in terms of Gill's place within the broader practice of phrenology, racism and so on: it's mentioned in the lead but not really discussed.
Agreed with Vati that some points of the prose could do with a look to make sure that they are clear, grammatical and that they really stand up to scrutiny (one that I noticed: the walk downtown was disliked by the delegations, who preferred to stay in the vicinity of the Smithsonian: did someone ask all of those delegations? Greater precision is needed here.) UndercoverClassicistT·C17:01, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Vaticidalprophet, @UndercoverClassicist - I combed through the article and added a good deal more context (esp. about the motivations of Gill's work and his place in this) and copyedited as per both reviews. UC, I would like clarification on reference formatting - I have been using just the default source editing citation style for these. Generalissima (talk) 18:28, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I'm not seeing all that much more context (I note the addition of ~3500 bytes since 7 Nov): in particular, in the critique/criticism section, there's no mention of the idea that photographing people as anthropological specimens is now considered pseudoscientific and racist, and we allow the moniker seeking to capture subjects as "nothing but an Indian" to pass without comment, context or criticism. Why did people like Gill go into this kind of photography, who else was doing it, and what was the place of people like him in the intellectual world? Then, what happened, and when, to change American science's attitude towards race, anthropology and photography?
On citations, the key issue is capitalisation. Normally, we use title case for headings -- so nouns, pronouns, verbs, first words, last words and words immediately following a colon are capitalised. Take a look, for instance, at the difference currently between ref 8 (Poskett, title case) and ref 5 (Elderidge, sentence case with extra space before colon) or ref 7 (sentence case). Any system is fine, but it does need to be a coherent system. UndercoverClassicistT·C18:46, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I standardized the capitalization for the citations. In regards to additional background information — I had considered adding a background subsection on contemporary photography and anthropological practices, but it would break up the standard flow of a biographical article like this and introduce sources that do not mention Gill or indeed the BAE at all. Maybe footnotes could give context in a fitting manner? I am to be honest unsure on how to add context here without exceeding the scope of the article. Generalissima (talk) 21:07, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's always useful to look at FAs in a similar topic area: taking James B. Longacre and V. Gordon Childe as examples, you can straight away see a difference in the level of coverage and detail. Even where we have someone like John Doubleday (restorer), who in lots of ways is similar to Gill (a museum employee involved in work with objects and people rather than constructing academic theories) and about whom relatively little is known, what we do know is covered in extensive, comprehensive detail. I'm not yet seeing this article as comparable. UndercoverClassicistT·C10:00, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Such errors were shared by contemporary photographers of Native Americans such as Curtis and Frank Rinehart, seeking to capture subjects as "nothing but an Indian" in order to document what was considered by contemporary anthropologists to be a disappearing race and culture" feels like a COATRACK to me because the source does not mention Gill
Were there any other obits? The sourcing feels thin and the reliance on one source feels off to me
Sadly, no other obituaries for Gill exist. I have corrected the title of Glenn 1983, added ISBNs, and gave a link for the Wieidman source. Per the penultimate point, this is a needle I am having to thread between giving as much context to his role and the state of American anthropology as feasible while avoiding a coatrack article! I hope to find a way to make reviewers on both sides of that divide happy. - Generalissima (talk) 06:48, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, this article just suffers from too many little flaws for me at the moment. I haven't looked into the sourcing concerns raised by Vaticidalprophet above, but purely looking at the prose, I agree with their analysis and think it needs a significant copy-edit to approach FA standards. A few general issues:
Parts of the article seems to be excessive detail for a biography of Gill. For example, what does the paragraph starting "Prior to 1904, native delegations were photographed at.." tell us about Gill?
Some of the prose is excessively clunky and difficult to understand, for example "Anthropometric measurements, otherwise taken from casts and other physical measuring greatly disliked by native subjects.."
Closing comment. Due to concerns raised by three reviewers regarding prose, sourcing, and comprehensiveness, I am archiving this nomination. It's recommended to seek mentorship at WP:FAM. Additionally, consider initiating another peer review, given the premature closure of the last one, and collaborate with reviewers to address concerns before reattempting FAC.FrB.TG (talk) 15:23, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
this article is about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, one of the best and most polarising indie rock albums ever released. the album is branded by surreal and strange lyrics, along with unconventional instruments and performances, making it both a staple in indie rock and generally a staple in music.
this article has been brought into FAC three times previously but all were thrown out due to the inactivity of its nominator—it currently stands in GA-class. I think this album is worth being featured and I'll try and work to get it there if need be—the previous nomination gave the impression that it was worth promoting but the inactivity of the nominator had gotten it closed. —darling (talk) 22:06, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiDarling, and welcome back to FAC. You probably recall that as you have not yet had an article promoted at FAC this article will need to pass a source to text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing to be considered for promotion. Good luck with the nomination. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:46, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So as the editor who did most of the work on this article, I would have appreciated a head’s up about the nomination. However, I’ve got time on my hands so I’ll be able to also answer any questions. Been meaning to get back to this article anyway. One more thing to note is that an Elephant 6 that actually got released a couple of years ago finally got a non VHS release. I’m not sure how much info it will include about Aeroplane (if any at all, it seems to mostly be about the Elephant 6 collective itself) but I’ll still watch it and see if there’s any new info. Famous Hobo (talk) 23:15, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiFamous Hobo, as one of the FAC rules is "Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article before nominating it" I would normally close this now as a procedural fail. Unless you were inclined to become a co-nominator and help shepherd it through the process? Your call. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but I won't be able to do this unless the review is at risk of stalling out. I forgot about this when I initially had time, and I have been and currently am too busy to review this at this time. From a simple glance over, I think the subsection on the album's influence is too short and if possible should be merged - my first thought is into the previous subsection - but I would like a second opinion from another contributor on if that's appropriate before it's implemented. It looks very good at a first read, by the way; I did get to that a few days ago. dannymusiceditoroops23:53, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey! Here are some comments I have after reading the article:
"on wax" said Richardson" – shouldn't there be a comma before "said"?
Fixed
"Bilheimer scanned every image onto a dirty piece of paper" – this part sounds extremely confusing to me. I've never heard the phrase "scanned onto" (and googling it I only see "scanned onto computer" and similar), so to me it sounds like he scanned and then copied the images to a piece of paper. The book clarified it: "Chris solved the problem by scanning the back of the postcard and using the [...] paper as the background against which all other images were screened". Also if I read it correctly, it's not a random piece of paper, it's the backside of the original postcard. So, maybe something like "To give the disparate drawings a cohesive look, Bilheimer scanned the back of the postcard and overlaid the images over it"? (sidenote: is it page 80? Google Books has the 2005 edition with the same ISBN as the book cited and it's on page 81 there).
I'll admit, I wrote that section years ago and it's mostly stayed untouched ever since. But after looking back at the book, you're absolutely right about the wording. Changed it. Also changed the page number. I'm using the copy on Internet Archive, and it is in fact on page 81 (for reference I went through every other instance of page numbers from that book used in this article and only found one other inaccuracy, which coincidentally was for the same page).
"released in the United States on February 10, 1998, by Merge Records, and in the United Kingdom in May 1998 by The Blue Rose Record Company" – is there a reason why there is a comma before the first "by", but not the second one?
Pretty sure you're supposed to include a comma after the year if the month day year format is used in the middle of a sentence. [10]
"Ankeny did note however the lyrics were too abstract to derive meaning from" – shouldn't "however" be enclosed in commas?
Fixed
"The 33⅓ book" – I believe it would be better to say "the 33⅓ series book", as an average reader might not be familiar with the series.
I'll be honest, 33⅓ series book sounds clunky, especially since the word series is repeated at the end of the sentence. And while an average reader probably won't know about the 33⅓ series, isn't that what the wikilink is for?
I went through the article again and I don't see any other issues. It is well-written, the prose is clear. The article is comprehensive, I definitely learned more after reading it. I didn't see anything unsourced and in a few spots I checked the sources supported the text written. The article is properly structured, well-illustrated, and while there's some editing going on, it doesn't change the article significantly. I support this nomination. Good luck! AstonishingTunesAdmirer連絡05:37, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A lovely piece of work in so many ways: the writing is really quite impressive in many places. My usual list of nit-picks: there's quite a few, I'm afraid, but I think they should all be pretty quick, easy fixes. UndercoverClassicistT·C10:53, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Contemporary reviews were mostly positive but not laudatory: I know what's meant here, but laudatory just means "expressing praise", so you can't really be positive without being laudatory. Suggest were mildly positive or similar.
fixed
as a result, he did not want to continue touring: did not want reads a bit oddly to me in this sentence: I think it's the implied continuous tense of did not want, when we're really working in the past simple. Suggest "he refused to tour again", "withdrew from touring" or similar.
fixed
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea's critical standing has risen significantly: significantly is a tricky one (a certain frequent flier here at FAC would ask "signifying what?"): do we mean "greatly"?
fixed
and has been described: the album has been described, since the last noun was its critical standing.
fixed
Initially called Milk, Mangum shared the recordings: dangling participle phrase: it was the band, not Mangum, that was initially called Milk. Would italicise or double-quote MilkasMOS:WORDSASWORDS.
fixed
which eventually grew into a loose musical collective.: a collective of whom? I'm inferring, though it's not stated, that Schneider, Doss and Hart made their own music independently.
For organisation; comments about musical collective
I'm confused here; it's stated that they're a musical collective, so I don't see what the issue with this is.
I found it unclear as to exactly who was in this collective, other than Mangum. He's currently the only person we've identified as making any music up to this point.UndercoverClassicistT·C10:42, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Initially called Milk, Mangum shared the recordings with his friends and fellow musicians Robert Schneider, Bill Doss, and Will Cullen Hart.
That's a bit clearer, but we've still got a bit of a difficult join between the two sentences: Initially called Milk, Mangum shared the recordings [which only he made] with his friends and fellow musicians Robert Schneider, Bill Doss, and Will Cullen Hart. The four friends branded their[now it sounds like they're making music together, but we haven't actually said that] homemade... Some options:
Perhaps we could add a clause/sentence in the middle, ending up with something to the effect of Mangum shared his recordings with [those three], and the four began producing music together. They branded their homemade...?
Otherwise, if they're just a loose collective but not actually working together, we could have: Mangum shared his recordings with his friends and fellow musicians Robert Schneider, Bill Doss, and Will Cullen Hart, and the four began producing music together. They branded their respective homemade..., or each began branding their music, released on homemade cassette tapes, with the label...?
Thinking harder on this, I think the ambiguity is with the word their: it can mean either "belonging to all of them jointly" (e.g. "Mr. and Mrs. Jones are painting their house") or "individually belonging to each of them" (e.g. "Mr. and Mrs. Jones have got paint on their shirts"). As there's a material difference in this context, it would be useful to find a rephrasing that gets around that ambiguity. UndercoverClassicistT·C09:38, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
changed to Mangum shared the recordings he created with his friends and fellow musicians Robert Schneider, Bill Doss, and Will Cullen Hart, and the four began producing music together. The group started branding their respective homemade cassette tapes with "The Elephant 6 Recording Co.", a then-imaginary record label which later grew into a loose musical collective. let me know if there's any other issues with this. —darling (talk) 00:51, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
under the alias Neutral Milk Hotel: another candidate for italics or quotes per MOS:WORDSASWORDS (we're talking about the name specifically, not the thing known by it).
fixed
an expansive Beatlesque production: the second line of our article on "Beatlesque" is "The term is loosely defined and has been applied inconsistently". Can we be more specific about exactly what we (and Schneider) mean by it here?
source used doesn't particularly identify what it means, just says "high-art Beatlesque production". I'm not fully sure what to do here.
The North American tour in support of On Avery Island generated enough money to enable the quartet to move to Athens, Georgia, where a large group of Elephant 6 musicians were living: where are these Elephant 6 people coming from? A paragraph ago, there were perhaps four of them. Separately, I think it's worth clarifying that Athens wasn't just where Mangum's mates lived - some sort of comment about its role as a hub for alternative rock since the 1970s would be useful.
removed the bit about Elephant 6 musicians as the source mentions it briefly and doesn't mention it as a large group but rather as a hub for them; changed to The North American tour in support of On Avery Island generated enough money to enable the quartet to move to Athens, Georgia, which was considered a hub for alternative rock and new wave musicians.
He shared the demos with his bandmates before they moved to Denver to record the album: do we know why Denver? Athens seems like it would have been a perfectly good place to record it.
source notes that Schneider's studio (Pet Sounds) was in Denver. added in text.
whenever Koster was not needed, he would work on songs for the Music Tapes: might be worth clarifying who/what the Music Tapes were.
fixed
wiped these recordings as he felt it did not sound like Mangum's music: grammatically, they did not sound, but I think we need to be a bit clearer: they were Mangum's music, so sounded like it by definition, but presumably they didn't have what Schneider felt to be Mangum's distinctive sound.
fixed: Schneider occasionally tried using an electric guitar, however he wiped these recordings as he felt that they did not have Mangum's distinctive sound.
as Spillane could only read bass clef, he had to rewrite these arrangements before he could learn them.: it sounds as though Spillane rewrote the arrangements, which would be tricky if he couldn't read them (I suspect we more mean that he couldn't read treble clef confidently or quickly enough to play from it).
addressed in another comment by Harrias
As he did while learning the songs for On Avery Island, Spillane spent hours every day practicing and writing more arrangements in the basement: I'm not sure the last bit is right: he didn't record On Avery Island in the same house, so couldn't have used the same basement.
Spillane didn't record On Avery Island at all since he wasn't featured on it and wasn't in the band at all; my assumption is that he practiced On Avery Island in his basement and then later both practiced and wrote arrangements in the same basement.
Schneider and Spillane worked together to seamlessly combine their differing arrangements: would cut seamlesslyasWP:PUFFERY and perhaps unverifiable.
fixed
which Erik Himmelsbach of Spin compared to the '50s progression: what was the comparison? Was it the 50s/I-vi-IV-V progression, or was there some other sort of similarity?
my assumption would be the former, however the source doesn't specify.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea emphasizes structure and texture, and tracks seamlessly segue into one another.: as this is cited to the album notes, I think it would be better framed as the band's own take on/sales pitch for their work, and attributed in text: knowing that source will affect most readers' handling of the information.
this isn't cited to the album's notes, it's cited to an All Music Guide editorial staff review by Jason Ankeny of the album.
Apologies: I think the point stands, though: from a WP:VERIFIABILITY point of view, if a judgement is inherently unverifiable, it should be attributed (we can't prove that the links between tracks are seamless, but we can prove that someone has described them as such. UndercoverClassicistT·C18:52, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ankeny described In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as having a greater emphasis on structure and texture; he further noted that, like On Avery Island, "the songs run continuously together". also took the liberty of fixing consistency issues; Ankeny was introduced more than once within the article.
Rolling Stone notes ... Critic Chris DeVille wrote: I would put all of these critical assessments here (though not e.g. Cooper's in the following section) into the past tense, since we're talking about historical assessments rather than trying to establish some kind of timeless truth about the songs, but in any case consistency is called for.
I would render PJ SauerteigasP. J. Sauerteig for consistency with M. Christian McDermott later.
fixed
Pitchfork's Mark Richardson wrote that the lyrics are written with childlike wonder, in which mundane interactions are illustrated as fantastical moments. "It's like a children's book or a fairy tale, Where the Wild Things Are on wax", said Richardson: can we rework this to avoid the awkward repetition of Mark Richardson wrote ... said Richardson?
fixed, I hope
Would wikilink Anne Frank in the quotebox caption as well, as that comes higher up the page for me than the body text mention.
fixed
two people who unsuccessfully merged: this is, I hope, a metaphor?
The “Boy”. it turns out, is a ghastly symbol for two who have tried unsuccessfully to merge into one autonomous and coherent entity. The separate identities, or heads, do share a body, but their mangled form floating in formaldehyde is far from a Platonic vision. Here we realize that, in talking about love, Mangum’s scope extends beyond mere romantic love; he is concerned with all yearning and affection that leads us into dangerous pools of interdependence.
done: two people who unsuccessfully merged into one body and, as a result, feel like they are trapped in an interdependent relationship.
He was deeply affected by the book and spent "about three days crying", having dreams of traveling back in time and saving her.: one of the key rules of quotation is that we should always be able to tell who said it: I assume this is his own recollection, and if so that should be made clear.
fixed
It would be overly literal, though, to describe In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as an album about the Holocaust: I'd ... out though, as it breaks the grammatical flow of the (otherwise expertly constructed) sentence.
fixed
two old-fashioned bathers: can we be slightly more specific as to when old-fashioned is?
information on the art is little due to the anonymity of the artist; my presumption is that it's from the time period in which it was drawn (1907-08). I'm not fully confident in changing it to two bathers out at sea in what is presumed to be the early 1900s but I think we could work on it.
marching band members might be better as marching-band members (to clarify that they're not members of a pop group who happen to be marching).
I feel as if the added description of the bandmaster is enough to clarify; as far as I'm aware, pop bands don't have bandmasters.
Bilheimer scanned the back of the postcard and overlaid the images over it, which made the drawings look the same age, with an effect of slow decay: this needs a bit of explaining for me.
from the provided source:
Chris: “I wanted to have a little bit of a ‘circus coming to town’ feel without an obviously circusy-looking image. And so I laid out this whole thing and printed it out and crinkled it up and then scanned it back in and laid it on top of old paper. I work really hard to make things look like they weren’t made on a computer. Even though I’m not using traditional graphic methods—it’s the same reason bands like recording with tube amps and recording to tape instead of to hard drive—it has that tactile warmth to it. That’s what I try to do with graphic design. Especially by designing something, printing it out, fucking it up and then scanning it back in.”
Merge pressed 5,500 CD and 1,600 vinyl copies, and expected sales to be similar to On Avery Island.: can we remind or tell the reader how well On Avery Island sold?
done
Initial critical responses to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea were generally enthusiastic, but not laudatory: as in lead.
fixed
psychedelic folk-infused: suggest putting a comma after psychedelic to be clear that it's not infused with psychedelic folk.
fixed
the indie-pop sound of their Elephant 6 peers: could we have some examples here? I'm still a little unclear as to who these people are.
praised the unique instrumentation: we need a better word than unique: it's not necessarily a synonym for good, and every song is unique in some way.
source uses "oddball," which I think is probably a better replacement. fixed
noted the semireligious undertones: I'm not sure we've really discussed this at all further up, but we really should.
noting for later there is a brief mention along with two quotes, but it could be discussed further if that isn't enough.
Where do you mean? I see a reference to the songs mentioning religious fanaticism, and a critic comparing them (very loosely) with a religious vision, but I'm not sure either of these are the same. UndercoverClassicistT·C18:52, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
it fell into critical neglect: reads like a MOS:IDIOM to me: what exactly does this mean?
my assumption from reading the provided source is that it means that the album was received well on release but shrugged aside afterwards.
Mangum said that "a lot of the basic assumptions I held about reality started crumbling": more grammatical as [he] held about...
fixed
He could not bring himself to tell the band however.: could do with some love for prose: better as However, he could not..., or perhaps as something more encyclopaedia as "he did not tell the band (until)..."
fixed (see below)
Some of them had quit their jobs to be in Neutral Milk Hotel, and it seemed impossible to justify a breakup immediately after their first genuine success. : we're writing in Wikivoice here, as if this is a matter of objective fact, but seem to have slipped into Mangum's own thoughts and perhaps his own account of this period.
fixed: However, he could not bring himself to tell the band; Mangum believed that it would be impossible to justify a breakup immediately after their first genuine success, and some of them had quit their jobs to be in Neutral Milk Hotel.
Mangum occasionally worked on music over the next few years—he released Orange Twin Field Works: Volume I, played as a touring member of Circulatory System, and briefly hosted a program for the freeform radio station WFMU—: can we be more specific on when any of this happened?
done: he released Orange Twin Field Works: Volume I and played as a touring member of Circulatory System in 2001, and briefly hosted a program for the freeform radio station WFMU in 2002—but remained out of the spotlight and released no new songs for Neutral Milk Hotel.
converted Mangum into a larger-than-life figure: what does this mean? The usual interpretation would be "made him highly extroverted", which doesn't seem likely here.
I think there's a bit of Engvar confusion going on here: in BrE, the phrase much more means "charismatic" than "famous". Would suggest reworking, if only for the benefit of those who don't have English as a first language. UndercoverClassicistT·C18:52, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Kevin Griffis dedicated an entire cover story to trying to track down Mangum for personal closure: I think "entire" is WP:PUFFERY, and would suggest that "for personal closure" is quite uncritically repeating Griffis' conceit/sales pitch: he was also doing it for a paycheck and because he thought others would be interested in reading it. After all, if it was purely a personal project, he could have done it without writing about it.
removed the entire; I do, however, disagree on your sentiment that he was purely interested in a paycheck. I read through the original piece (here, archived, if you're interested) and it genuinely goes into some deep and personal experiences that I don't think someone simply going for a paycheck would write about.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea's critical standing rose tremendously in the years after its release: this seems to contradict what we said earlier about how it fell into critical neglect. We could either retitle the "Critical reception" section as "Initial critical reception", or move some of this material up, since a section claiming to be about all of its critical reception needs to include the post-2000 reception as well.
fixed previously but not noted
Just as the album itself became a meme, the tendency to lavish it with hyperbolic praise also became an online in-joke, exemplified by a headline from the satirical website ClickHole: "Disgusting: ISIS Just Released a 2-Star Review of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea".: about a decade has passed over the last paragraph or so, and that wasn't really clear until I started looking at the dates on the citations. Can we be slightly clearer about the timeframes here?
fixed previously but not noted
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has sold over 393,000 copies, with reported sales of 25,000 copies a year: suggest an "as of" per WP:ENDURE.
went for as noted by Slate in 2008; source does not provide a year. could remove?
Several websites and magazines have ranked In the Aeroplane Over the Sea as one of the greatest indie rock albums of all time, including Amazon.com, Blender, and Entertainment Weekly: feels a bit weird to lead with a website not exactly known as an arbiter of musical taste.
fixed previously but not noted
moved the album all the way to number four in its 2003 revised list: cut all the wayasWP:PUFFERY.
fixed
placing it at number two, only behind Radiohead's OK Computer.: cut only as above.
fixed
Q and Spin placed In the Aeroplane Over the Sea on their lists of the best albums of the last twenty-five and thirty years respectively: we need a date for these lists.
specified and reorganised; Spin in 2005 and Q in 2010 placed In the Aeroplane Over the Sea on their lists of the best albums of the last twenty-five and thirty years respectively
Credits adapted from the liner notes : what does adapted mean here? I worry that there's a risk of WP:OR, as the liner notes are the only citation here.
It just means I sourced the info from the album's liner notes. I can change it to just say Credits sourced from the liner notes to clear up confusion.
noting for reference: I'm still active and I'm no longer as busy as I was before. should have a bit of time this week to get to some of the other comments. —darling (talk) 23:25, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for these replies: a small note - please don't strike other people's comments: in this case, it makes it very difficult to tell what I've seen, checked and struck off, and also gives a potentially false impression that I've withdrawn whatever the initial concern or suggestion was. UndercoverClassicistT·C17:22, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The lyrics are surrealistic and opaque, with themes ranging from nostalgia to love." Can we get rid of the fused participle. Something like "... and themes range from nostalgia to love".
changed to your suggestion; however, I do feel like (either exploringorfeaturing) themes that range from nostalgia to love may fit better, but I'd like input on that first.
Yeah, I agree with using "explore" or "feature". Using "range from ... to ..." is like setting a vague span without knowing what lies in between, much like an undefined variable. It's not as straightforward as a numerical range, leaving room for uncertainty. "Feature" or "explore" provides a clearer lens into what to expect, avoiding the ambiguity of an open-ended spectrum. FrB.TG (talk) 19:45, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was recorded at Pet Sounds Studio from July to September 1997" - WP:NBSP needed between Sep and 1997. Check throughout.
added non-breaking spaces; if I missed somewhere, let me know
"After graduating from high school, Mangum released the single "Everything Is" on Cher Doll Records under the alias Neutral Milk Hotel." Why the italics? If I'm not wrong aliases are usually not italicized.
this was the result of a comment above from UndercoverClassicist per MOS:WAW. the change does also confuse me a little bit, so if there's any issues with it I'm welcome to discuss.
"The track describes conjoined twins, although Sauerteig believes the conjoined twins" - perhaps replace the second "conjoined twins" with they to avoid repetition.
done
the Pazz & Jop, Robert Christgau dismissed the album as "a funereal jape that gets my goat." - the full stop shuold come after the quotation mark at the end (see MOS:LQ).
fixed
"In a 2016 article, journalist Luke Winkie said the initial reception was "the standard response to a confusing second album from a band without a preexisting pedigree: distant praise, hedged bets, avoiding the heart at all cost."[64]" Same as above. Check for other instances in the article.
fixed; no other ones that I can find.
That's it. Just some minor MoS and prose points. I made some copyedits in these edits. Please check them to see if I messed something up or accidentally changed the meaning of something. FrB.TG (talk) 19:45, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. My review of the prose and MoS is finished. Now let's cover sourcing.
Quite some unused sources. Examples:
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-34015-9_6 - this chapter delves into how In the Aeroplane over the Sea intertwines affective music with utopian longings, using Anne Frank's complex portrayal and Jeff Mangum's Occupy Wall Street performance to illustrate the challenges in realizing these wishful images. Quite some useful material there I think.
Oppose on 1b and 1c and recommend withdrawal at this point. The FAC has been open for more than a month now, and I think using these sources (and possibly others I have missed) would change the article significantly. That should take place outside the FAC venue. FrB.TG (talk) 06:02, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As with the lead, anything in the infobox should also appear in the body of the article; I can't find a mention of the October 13, 1998 single release date of "Holland, 1945" in the body.
fixed: The song "Holland, 1945" was released as a 7" single on October 13, 1998.
done: By the spring of 1997, Mangum had written and demoed nearly every song for In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.
"..tube mic pre-amp.." Both mic and pre-amp appear to be informal terms, and although we link to preamplifier, I don't know what a "tube mic" is; that isn't mentioned at that page.
since I'm not entirely sure, I'll take a look at this when I have the book on-hand; not at my home right now.
source used the same language. changed pre-amp to just preamplifier and wikilinked tube to Valve amplifier.
"maxed out" More informal language.
changed to maximised.
"The trumpets were written in treble clef, but as Spillane could only read bass clef, he had to rewrite these arrangements before he could learn them."}} If Spillane couldn't read treble clef, how could he rewrite them?
another thing I'll have to check in the book.
source provides no information on this.
Scott can read bass clef, but trumpet is written in treble, so he had to take the parts and rewrite them in the bass clef so he could learn them.
Had a chat to my wife, who can actually read music, and she is happy the original makes sense. The assumption being that Spillane can probably understand treble clef well enough to translate it into bass clef, but not to be able to play from it in real time. I'm happy to leave the original wording. Harrias(he/him) •talk20:30, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In the prose and a table, you style "AllMusic" without italics, but italicise it in the references: be consistent.
fixed
"P.J. Sauerteig" The MOS prefers spaced initials: P. J.
fixed
"The lyrics will sometimes.." I don't think "will" is needed here.
fixed
"The front cover contains a drawing of two bathers out at sea.." Technically there are four, as there are another two in the background.
fixed; corrected in alt text as well.
"Slate alleges that some were angry or accused Mangum of being selfish.." Some what? I assume it means fans, clarify that.
fixed
"..has sold over 393,000 copies.." I'd note that this was in 2013. I appreciate it will obviously still be true, but it also contextualises it.
fixed: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea had sold over 393,000 copies by 2013.
Oppose per WP:FACR 1c – There are a dozen critical reviews available on Newspapers.com through WP:TWL that are not cited in the article. Yes, critical reception sections can be based on music-oriented publications, but lack of including reviews from prominent newspapers like San Francisco Chronicle, The Sunday Telegraph, etc. limits the ability of the critical reception section to be "a through and representative survey of the relevant literature". Newspaper reviews are an important aspect of critical reception, showing how non-specialized outlets interpreted the work. And Newspapers.com is just one database—there is likely more on ProQuest or Google News Archive, etc. This impacts not just the critical reception section but others. It does not seem like there has been any research conducted in databases available to editors WP:TWL. Heartfox (talk) 23:25, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is a long way from a consensus to promote, and so I am going to archive it. I recommend that the nominator study the comments of the reviewers above, especially those not currently supporting, before bringing it back to FAC. The usual two-week hiatus will apply. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:57, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If I had a dime for everytime I had an FAC about a book entitled Micronations, I would have exactly one dime. I hope this is not too short. I have exhausted the RS sources I could find. ツLunaEatsTuna(💬)—04:52, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The following sources need page numbers for the fact, not just the paper
de Castro 2022
Foucher-Dufoix & Dufoix 2012
Sargent 2006
I have strong questions about BLDGBLOG as a source
Mixing books in both Secondary sources and Bibliography is odd
Oversight on my part—done. Sargent 2006 only has the one page. As for BLDGBLOG, I am not a fan of it but as it is an interview with one of the authors it should be okay for what it is being used for.. it would be a net negative IMO if the whole section had to be removed. ツLunaEatsTuna(💬)—13:38, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not committing to a review yet, but looking at BLDGBLOG's article, it's by an experienced journalist and seems to have a good reputation (the latter I chased up myself, because the article isn't spectacular, but can confirm multiple positive perspectives in RSes). Vaticidalprophet20:50, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
While I'm fine with the use of BLDGBLOG, I'm not sure overall if this article is ready for FAC, or necessarily FACable. Comparing to Micronations and the Search for Sovereignty, there's a noticeable gap.
The lead is decidedly short; both paragraphs are more like half-paragraphs. There's fairly little about either the content or the background, and no mention at all of the reception.
The reception is markedly shorter than MtSfS (already a short FA), and its organization is jumbled in the same way I commented on extensively at that FAC. Despite being only two paragraphs long, it's fairly difficult to follow due to its structure of mixing up various names and quotes with one another.
There are some unusual organizational choices (e.g. the isolated Lonely Planet sentence at the end of Context), and the article as a whole feels perhaps-unavoidably underwritten. The synopsis is very short. Some descriptions are difficult to follow (e.g. The book is authored by Australian journalist John Ryan, freelance journalist George Dunford, and writer and blogger Simon Sellars -- why "Australian journalist" and "freelance journalist"?).
Given the length of the article and the degree to which the sources have been mined, these issues are quite structural/foundational. I'm landing at a weak oppose at the moment, but 'weak' is a meaningful modifier here; I could perhaps be convinced to strike it if other opinions feel otherwise and the article makes progress. Vaticidalprophet01:52, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Added alt text and FUR. As for the flag icons, I think they help to illustrate the entries which are otherwise just boring lists and perhaps it makes sense to include them given the context of the section.. they might be fascinating to readers as many of the flags are quite unique and will almost certainly not be known to anyone. I would not do this for countries but for something of this nature I thought eh. ツLunaEatsTuna(💬)—05:37, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will limit myself to a prose review on this, so my comments do not reflect the quality of the sources used. Generally speaking, the article is well-written and a suitable scope. The article is certainly on the shorter side, but it broadly appears to be sufficient for the subject, with a couple of caveats, listed below.
The lead could do with expanding slightly to summarise the content of the article. Specifically, I would recommend adding a bit on the structure of the book, in terms of having the three sections for the different 'classifications' of Micronations.
I would add more context about Lonely Planet as a publisher, to give the reader an understanding that they are a well-known and respected publisher of travel guidebooks, as I think that is quite an important factor in the format of this book.
"While pitching the idea to the staff at Lonely Planet, Sellars, who founded.." This makes it sound like Sellars was doing the pitching, causing confusion in the second-half of the sentence.
"They are classified separately from states with limited recognition or quasi-states as.." I know you provide wikilinks, but I wonder if it would be useful to provide brief explanations of each other these things in the article? It may not, particularly if it would get too involved or lengthy.
Could you provide English translations for the French books titles?
"..when he was a kid.." "child" rather than "kid", please.
Broadly speaking, I'm not keen on the use of dashes in place of commas except where it provides additional clarity in complex sentences that also include commas, but I'm not so bothered as to object on these grounds if you leave it as is.
"It is fully illustrated." What does this mean? Is every single concept or subject of the book illustrated?
"..as well as a profile of Emperor Norton." Provide some context here; without clicking on the link, I don't know who he is, or why he is relevant to the article/book.
You mention that later publications change the title to Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Self-Proclaimed Nations, is that the only change? Does it also have 160 pages and cover exactly the same content, etc?
"..which includes what the authors equate as serious secessionist attempts.." Personally I think "consider" would be better word than "equate" here. Probably just a personal preference thing.
Try to avoid repeating "which includes" for all three sections, as it is a bit repetitive. Maybe "which features" / "featuring", "which details" / "detailing" etc. I said I wouldn't cover sourcing, but the P3, P4 and P5 references should cover the content of that section as well as the title.
"Peter Needham, writing for The Australian, and Jesse Walker in The American Conservative both.." This needs another pair of commas around "in The American Conservative", other it makes it sounds like Needham wrote for both The Australian and The American Conservative.
"Needham also appreciated.." This feels like an odd start to a paragraph, I think these two paragraphs would be better merged into one, as there isn't a natural break point, and it all covers the same thematic content.
"He stated that there is only "so many 'wacky' young men.." This should be "there are", not "there is".
Like Vaticidalprophet above, I am unable to satisfy myself that this article could ever exemplify Wikipedia's very best work. Not only is is short, at only 917 words, but it gives the impression of being artificially stuffed to appear longer. The context section of this article seems generally unnecessary; I wouldn't consider it a WP:MAJORASPECT of the article. Then there is the lengthy list of featured micronations, which would seem to be most of List of micronations, as you would surely expect from a micronations gazetteer, right? Finally, the critical reception section includes a quip and a remark that the gazetter might be useful if one wished to use it for its purpose ... ???
What is a central committee? It is the highest decision-making body of a socialist state when the party congress is adjourned. It is composed of the entire national leadership of the country. This organ makes decisions on every matter of national importance. This is the only article of its kind (about communist institutions, I think) that has been nominated for FL.
I aim to create a Featured topic of the 12th CC term on members, alternates, politburo composition, secretariat composition, inspection commission composition, military commission composition and the 12th National Congress. Hopefully, this nomination succeeds and I can begin work on the 12th CPV National Congress. --TheUzbek (talk) 11:52, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You should be aware that every aspect of the article will be rigorously examined, including the standard of prose; breadth, standard and formatting of sources; image licencing; and adherence to the Manual of Style.
Dealing with reviewers
Try to deal with comments in a timely and constructive fashion
Remember the reviewers are constructively giving their opinion on the article
Keep calm when dealing with criticism of any aspect of the article
Don't take the criticism personally: reviewers are examining the article – not you!
How to get the best from the process
Reviewing the work of others is a good way to get a grasp of the process from the other side
Reviewing also increases the likelihood that others will review your nomination – although remember there is no quid pro quo at FAC.
Done "His term and the 12th CC were marked by the nationwide anti-corruption campaign, commonly called blazing furnace, that began in 2013" a nationwide for "the"? and I think it would be good to have the original langauge version of blazing furnace included
Done "The campaign's intensity increased during the 12th term as it began enveloping retired, incumbent and senior leaders at all levels of governance." - enveloping doesn't seem right, perhaps investigating, although that's getting a bit alliterative perhaps
Not done (not the same guy, but introduced interlinking) Le Long Hiep, - is this Lê_Hồng_Hiệp? if it is, prob worth adding an interlanguage link with Template:Interlanguage link. and if there are any similar cases, worth doing for them as well eg Nguyễn Thanh Nghị, Nguyễn Xuân Anh, Lê Quốc Phong,
Done could you briefly explain what Đổi Mới is, otherwise it seems like a person
Done "Seventeen of the 180 members and 3 of the 20 alternates" - 3 can be "three", 20 could be twenty or not, I suppose you are using "Seventeen" because it begins the sentence
Done " 12th Central Committee. On 26 January, the congress delegates voted on the 11th CC's list of nominees for members and alternates of the 12th CC" - should put (CC) after Central Committee
Done "16 members of the sitting Governmen" - starting with 16 not sixteen?
Done『After being elected on 26 January 2016, the 12th CC convened for its 1st Plenary Session on 27 January 2016 at the Headquarters of the Party Central Committee in Hà Nội during the 12th National Congress to elect the 12th Politburo, 12th Central Inspection Commission (CIC) and three members of the 12th Secretariat, as well as the General Secretary and the CIC Chairman』- suggest breaking into two sentences
Done "Asked about his re-election, Nguyễn Phú Trọng stated, "I did not expect the Congress to introduce and elect me to the Central Committee. Then, the First Plenary Session elected me to the post of General Secretary with almost 100% absolute votes. I was surprised because my age was advanced while my health and qualifications were limited. I also asked for leave, but the Party assigned me the task, and I had to comply."[13]" - I'm seeing both re-election and reelected, can you standardise across the text? also I wouyld expect to see the quotation in its original language in the citation
Why? and in this instance it does not make grammatical sense.
What I meant was it's not good to have forms of both "re-elect" and "reelect" in the same article, it needs to be standardised to one or the other Mujinga (talk) 10:09, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done "The election results were announced in the morning of 28 January by Đinh Thế Huynh, on behalf of the Presidium of the 12th National Congress, to the congress delegates.[14] Đinh Thế Huynh reported that the electoral process carried out by the 1st Plenary Session were in accordance with the CPV Charter and the Election Regulations passed by the 12th National Congress, and were in accordance with inner-party democracy.[15] On the same day, the re-elected Nguyễn Phú Trọng delivered a closing speech on behalf of the 12th Central Committee to the 12th National Congress.[16]" - do we need anything more than the first sentence here?
"Done Seven members served in the 11th Politburo. " - I'd say "had served" reads better
"one had led a committee of the 13th National Assembly of Vietnam (Trương Thị Mai)" - good that you give the Vietnamese term for 13th National Assembly of Vietnam but this needs to be done consistently eg also for 11th Central Committee and Presidium of the 12th National Congress my mistake, that's someone's name
Done "Scholar Alexander Vuving notes that Nguyễn Phú Trọng's election as general secretary "surprised many observers."[18] Rodion Ebbighausen, writing for Deutsche Welle, wrote that Nguyễn Phú Trọng's reelection was a victory by conservative Marxist–Leninist forces over Nguyễn Tấn Dũng's capitalist approach. He also highlighted the personal differences between them: Nguyễn Phú Trọng affirmed collective leadership while Nguyễn Tấn Dũng represented an individualistic ethos. While unsure what consequences this would have for Vietnamese politics, Ebbighausen opined that the new leadership would take a more oppressive stance on foreign media and dissidents.[19] A report from the BBC News shared Ebbighausen's conservative versus reformer analysis and noted that Nguyễn Tấn Dũng was perceived "as modern, and friendly towards the US. He has also gained popularity domestically with strong anti-China rhetoric when it comes to disputed territory in the South China Sea".[20]" - whilst the Vuvig summary is good, I don't think we need direct quotes from DW or BBC, prob better to summarise the arguments
Done Photo caption:『The 2nd Plenary Session adopted the Politburo's proposal on nominating Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, Trần Đại Quang and Nguyễn Thị Kim Ngân as Prime Minister, President and Chair of the National Assembly, respectively.』- it's confusing me to have three people described and two pictured without any pointer as to who is who. Also you can if you want wikilink names in captions (or keep them unlinked, as long as it's standardised across the other pictures - I see at the moment of bit of both)
Done『Trần Đại Quang steered the proceedings on the opening day. Đinh Thế Huynh started the proceedings in the early morning by reading,』2x proceedings
"The plenum supported the 12th Politburo's proposal for the 2016–2020 socio-economic development plan and agreed to send it to the 11th Session for approval. In addition, it made some proposals of its own―but those proposals were not made public. The 12th CC informed the Politburo that the mid-term State finance-budget and mid-term public investment plans needed further refinement before being submitted to the 11th Session. Members of the 12th CC emphasised the importance of investing in agriculture, farmers and rural areas; revamping the state administration and procedures; and strengthening the business climate. Other concerns aired included high government overspending; bad public debt; the size of the public debt amid volatilities seen in the global financial market; climate change policies to mitigate against severe saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta and drought in the South Central Region and the Central Highlands and environmental pollution; and traffic bottlenecks in cities and large urban localities. Moreover, the committee stated its wish that annual, mid-term and five-year socio-economic development plans must not conflict with the decisions of the 12th National Congress and should be suited to the special conditions of each locality and sector. Another suggestion the plenum made was creating action programmes to implement party-state policies and guidelines. The 2nd Plenum reached consensus on a list of nominees for State agencies to be proposed to the 11th Session, which included picking nominees for the offices of President, Prime Minister and Chair of the National Assembly.[26] " - you seem to be giving a lot of details which could probably be summarised better. this is admittedly difficult since the systemic bias of wikipedia dictates most readers will need a lot of things contextualising, but on the other hand the level of detail is making my eyes glaze over and probably is a factor in this article not picking up more reviews. maybe WP:DETAIL is helpful. This article is 12740 words and WP:CANYOUREADTHIS suggests "At 10,000 words it may be beneficial to move some sections to other articles and replace them with summaries per Wikipedia:Summary style"
The question is really how, because I don't feel it is that easy. It's already shortened a bit.
As for WP:DETAIL the problem here is that none of the plenary sessions could be anything other than a stub on their own, which makes it a bit more difficult. Alas, also due to the great centralisation of powers in the CPV Central Committee it deals with everything, which makes it also a bit more difficult to summarise.
Not done, but clarified what nomination list actually is and why it is important coming fast on the heels of the above point, "Nguyễn Phú Trọng noted that based on the voting results at the plenum, the Politburo would continue to refine the nomination list before submitting it to the National Assembly.[26] " does not seem worth including, unless I've missed something
As for WP:DETAIL, I'm very interested in finding a way that works. This is the first of its kind nominated to FL so I'm hoping this one will function as a model of sorts for these kinds of articles. However, it is not usual for a central committee of a ruling communist party to convene for so many meetings. The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party convenes for seven in five years. When that is said I think it is difficult to move information from this article to other articles due to the role of the Central Committee in the Vietnamese communist system. TheUzbek (talk) 18:13, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK so you have obviously put a lot of work into this, so sorry to be negative, I'm going to oppose for now.
I'm interested, were you using other articles as a guide? I've had a look around and don't see this level on detail in for example 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and I don't see any FAs in this style. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it just means we need to get the style right going forward and that might take some time.
I'm concerned about level of detail and your replies don't really persuade me that the current level is necessary in the article, which could be reframed into a list of plentary sessions for example. We are at FAC not FLC however. I see in the GOCE copy edit Voorts made some helpful comments about how you are giving a lot of detail without saying what actually happened and I don't think you have taken that fully on board. Yes it's hard to trim, but it still needs doing. It prob would have been a good idea to take this to Wikipedia:Peer review before coming here. You also said to Voorts "I'll begin work on expanding the "Analysis, interpretations and legacy" section" then put that bit into the 1st plenary section and didn't expand it.
I was at first concentrating on a prose review, and whilst I'd say the prose does need more work to now I'm seeing the issues as more structural, so my oppose is based on criteria 2b and 4.
I was hoping you would start to chop the article down a bit when I made my previous comments, instead some of your replies such as "none of the plenary sessions could be anything other than a stub on their own" and "Some of them are very important articles, such as the Charter of the Communist Party of Vietnam, which is a must article which English WP is currently missing" suggest to me that perhaps you see the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam as more important than wikipedia style guidelines, when in fact they're both important on wikipedia. There's no issue at all with each plenary being a stub (or making a list of plenaries) and this reformulated article being an overview (although I appreciate this may take some time). I hope these comments make sense and can be taken constructively.
Also as a side topic, going forwards could you reply below each of my comments and sign (which you have partly done), rather than writing done at the beginning of a comment I made? Thanks, Mujinga (talk) 10:05, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I hope I can persuade you otherwise.
The 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party article is about a specific event, and not a whole load of meetings. To compare this article to that one is misleading and shows a lack of understanding of the topic at hand. As I said, I could not use any articles as a guide since there is no comparative article on English Wikipedia, which makes it important that you work with me instead of opposing :)
I might have written misleadingly, I have no problems cutting the article, but I would prefer that we go through the whole article together and then cut (it would be easier that way I presume)
"reframed into a list of plentary sessions for example" Again, it seems you misunderstand the topic at hand and it would fail to show the importance of the subject at hand.
"Yes it's hard to trim" - again, I'm for trimming!
"Analysis, interpretations and legacy" the reason I removed it was that I didn't find enough text to make that good, so I instead merged the analysis part into the plenum articles wherever I got relevant commentaries. So I did expand analysis and commentary, but added it to the main article instead of having separate sections.
"none of the plenary sessions could be anything other than a stub on their own" , but this is sadly true. Vietnam is non-transparent about its decision-making process. Again, I feel you show a lack of comprehension of the subject. They would not be anything more than stubs, and that's a fact. There are always exceptions to these rules, such as the 8th Session of the Central Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia, an article devoted to a specific plenum which has gotten a whole lot of attention, but none of these have. That's a fact, sadly.
"Charter of the Communist Party of Vietnam, which is a must article which English WP is currently missing" suggests to me that perhaps you see the history of the Communist Party of Vietnam" . I honestly don't understand how you reached that conclusion. Red links might not always be good, but some red links are, I think necessary, due to the article's weight. If Mao Zedong didn't have an article here on WP I would assume the correct step was to have that link because the topic in itself is clearly notable. Other links, of course, are not and can be removed since they are not essential to understanding the topic at hand. TO understand the Vietnamese political system, the Charter is essential.
"There's no issue at all with each plenary being a stub (or making a list of plenaries) and this reformulated article being an overview (although I appreciate this may take some time). I hope these comments make sense and can be taken constructively." The reason is, I think, that the article and Wikipedia's rendering of the subject would be worse for it.
Again, I want to reduce both the article length and improve it, and I've shown willingness to do it so I hope you return back to reviewing it Mujinga!
NB: I have now cut the article by 3,625 characters, and I will continue to trim the article in accordance with Mujinga!'s suggestions. --TheUzbek (talk) 12:30, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the detailed response, unfortunately we are still at an impasse because the alleged importance of things does not mean they cannot be a stub on wikipedia and FAC isn't really for trimming article in my opinion, it's more about is this article suitable for the frontpage, yes or no. I'm quite aware 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party is differernt, but I'm trying to discuss with you the model to use - if you've started from scratch in making this page, then my suggestion would be to reframe it. This is also what Voorts was saying, in my opinion. I'm happy to stop here and see what other reviewers say, my advice would still be to withdraw and take this to peer review before heading back here. Mujinga (talk) 13:28, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What you are saying does not really make any sense. You are saying a) you should create stubs and b) there might not be enough content to have this article. Make up your mind and keep reviewing. This is nonsense. I can add more information on "regulations on the enforcement of the Party's Charter and the regulations on party inspection, supervision and discipline", and all those other documents... I have to admit I skimmed his comments to fast, and should have more detailed description of them. I will now do that; that will be a quick fix! But that goes against your main point of reducing the size and the other argument of having this article in the first place. TheUzbek (talk) 14:17, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was reading through the article, when I noticed that numerous sentences cited one source. I decided to do a singular spotcheck, because such paragraphs are prone to copyright issues, especially WP:CLOP. Unfortunately, that is exactly what I found. See below:
Wikipedia article (paragraph breaks for comparison)
"The 12th CC informed the Politburo that the mid-term State finance-budget and mid-term public investment plans needed further refinement before being submitted to the 11th Session.
It emphasised the importance of investing in agriculture, farmers and rural areas; revamping the state administration and procedures; and strengthening the business climate.
Other concerns aired included high government overspending; bad public debt; the size of the public debt amid volatilities seen in the global financial market; climate change policies to mitigate against severe saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta and drought in the South Central Region and the Central Highlands and environmental pollution; and traffic bottlenecks in cities and large urban localities.
Moreover, the committee stated its wish that annual, mid-term and five-year socio-economic development plans must not conflict with the decisions of the 12th National Congress and should be suited to the special conditions of each locality and sector.
Another suggestion the plenum made was creating action programmes to implement party-state policies and guidelines."
"It pressed forward refining the mid-term State finance-budget plan and the mid-term public investment plan to submit to the 14th NA for consideration.
According to Party General Secretary Trong, participants underscored the need to prioritise investment in agriculture, farmers and rural areas; overhaul the public administration sector and administrative procedures; and improve business environment.
Other concerns include dealing with high budget overspending, bad and public debts amid the volatilities in the global financial-monetary markets, mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change that has led to severe saltwater intrusion in the Mekong Delta and drought in the south central region and the Central Highlands, and environment pollution and traffic congestion in cities and major urban areas.
Building and realising the five-year public investment scheme will present a panorama of public projects and State budget balance between 2016-2020, they said.
The Committee requested that annual, mid-term and five-year socio-economic development plans must be in line with the guidelines and viewpoints of the 12th National Party Congress, as well as the conditions of each locality and sector.
It also urged developing action programmes for implementing the policies and the guidelines of the Party and the State, as well as making revisions if necessary."
This article is about the inaugural Scottish Cup competition organised by the Scottish Football Association in 1873–74. The competition involved the eight founder members of the SFA as well as an additional eight clubs and was won by Queen's Park – their first of 10 titles to date. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the competition so I would like to promote the article to FA status. This is my first nomination so any assistance is greatly appreciated. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 11:26, 28 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiStevie fae Scotland, and welcome to FAC. Just noting that as a first time nominator at FAC, this article will need to pass a source to text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing to be considered for promotion. Good luck with the nomination. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:05, 29 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
"Queen's Park had been founded in July 1867 and joined the English Football Association three years later" - I don't think it's strictly accurate to call the FA "English" in this time period. As noted further on, the Scottish FA had not yet been formed, and it was still rather nebulous as to whether the FA was the governing body of association football in England, all of the UK, or even the whole world. Maybe hedge bets and, if they were the first Scottish member club (as I believe they were), say "and became the first Scottish club to join the previously solely England-based Football Association three years later."
"the costs of travelling to England for matches was" - "the costs....was" isn't grammatically correct
"Secretary Archibald Rae also" - false title. Suggest "The club's secretary Archibald Rae also"
"wrote a letter to a number of clubs, including Kilmarnock who had taken influence from Queen's Park to play association football over rugby, " - comma usage makes it ambiguous as to whether it was just Kilmarnock who had taken influence or all the clubs he wrote to
"Eight further teams joined the Scottish FA over the next few months and subscription fees from 15 of them" - this wording indicates that the 15 was a sub-set of the 8, which obviously isn't possible. Suggest "Eight further teams joined the Scottish FA over the next few months and subscription fees from 15 of the members"
"Players were considered "out of play" if they were nearer to the goal than their teammate when they kicked the ball unless there were at least three of their opponents between them and their own goal." - this wording is very confusing. I would suggest "A player was considered "out of play" if he was nearer to the goal than a teammate who kicked the ball to him, unless there were at least three opponents between him and the goal." No need to use gender-neutral language, I would say, given that only men took part in the competition.
I have seen the term "gutta percha" before now in this context and I have absolutely no idea what it is/was. Do you happen to know? Is there an appropriate wikilink?
Honestly, I didn't know what this was either. Gutta-percha was used to reinforce football boots, more information is available here if you're interested. I have wiki-linked as there is a page explaining what it is but it has no mention of it being used to reinforce football boots. If I get a chance today, I'll add something so it's not just linking to a page that might be confusing for readers. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 11:09, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Of the 16 teams to enter the first round; Southern were" - semi-colon should be a comma
"Southern were the only team who would not play a single match" - presumably you mean they would never play a Scottish Cup match? Rather than literally never play a match?
"Five of the eight ties were played at venues opposite to the draw after Renton, Eastern, Queen's Park, Western and Clydesdale won the coin toss" - I don't get this. Earlier you simply said that home advantage was determined by a coin toss. But now it reads like it was determined by the draw but then could get changed by a coin toss?
What I meant by this was that team X was drawn out the hat first to play team Y before the coin toss decided team Y would host. I'm not sure what the best way to say that is because I understand the confusion. It is noted in the source (the online version has the same notation but doesn't actually say what it means) that Ties whose first match was played on a venue opposite to the draw are donated with a v* versus and prior to 1880 the choice of ground for the first match in a tie was decided by the toss of a coin. I've left it in for now but I'm happy to discuss the wording or perhaps remove the opposite to the draw phrasing and just say who won the coin toss in each tie. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 11:09, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If home advantage was solely determined by a coin toss then which team came out of the hat first doesn't really matter, so I just wouldn't mention it...... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:25, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Stevie fae Scotland please have a look at the instructions at the top of FAC; the {{tq}} template is not used at FAC, as it causes problems in archives and slows down the load time for all of FAC. I have replaced a few so the FAC page can again become accessible to all. Thanks for understanding! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:54, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Later on the same day, Alexandra Athletic and Eastern recorded wins over Callander and Rovers" => "Later on the same day, Alexandra Athletic and Eastern recorded wins over Callander and Rovers respectively"
"officially the Scottish Football Association Challenge Cup": can I just check that this was the official name right from the start? I know it's the official name now, but since this is the article about the first cup, this is going to be taken as indicating the name at the time. If we don't know for sure I would hedge with wording such as "now officially known as".
"It is the oldest in association football and the oldest national trophy in the world." Perhaps a footnote would be useful here to explain that the UK consists of four nations in the football world, unlike any other country (and almost any other sport) -- many non-Brits would be baffled by calling the Scottish Cup a national trophy.
"who had taken influence from Queen's Park to play association football over rugby": "taken influence" doesn't seem a very natural phrase. How about "who had been influenced by Queen's Park to play association football rather than rugby"?
Do we know which of the sixteen teams did not pay a subscription fee, and why?
I don't know. According to Stewart Mathers' book, the cup and 11 badges cost £56 12s 11d and Scottish F.A. Cup 1873–2017: The Complete Results says that 15 members "subscribed to the cost of the trophy" but nothing more. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 19:14, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a response from the Vale of Leven History Project. The article was researched and written 12 years ago but the gentleman responsible unfortunately died four years ago so they aren't able to confirm his source. They did say his research was extensive and the site as a whole seems reliable if that helps any. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 13:18, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"which resulted in the need for byes before the introduction of the Scottish Football League in 1890 and the Scottish Qualifying Cup in 1895": I'm surprised by how definite this is -- it's definitely the case that there have been no byes since 1890? And why did the SFL make a difference?
There have been byes but they became quite rare in the main competition after 1890 (I can explain in more detail but, essentially preliminary rounds and then the qualifying cup evened up the numbers so that, along with the previous season's semi-finalists and teams from the league, there were 32 in round one). I'm happy to consider alternative wording if you have any suggestions. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 15:07, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's fine as is, but I think it would also be fine (and more concise) if you simply listed the four that are not defunct -- maybe "As of 2023, only Dumbarton, Kilmarnock and Queen's Park still regularly compete in the competition, and by 1967 all the other teams had become defunct except for Vale of Leven"? Or if you want to have the 1967 before the 2023 info, as a more natural order, "By 1967 all the other teams had become defunct except for Dumbarton, Kilmarnock, Queen's Park and Vale of Leven, and as of 2023 only the first three of these still competed regularly in the Cup. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:13, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I was expecting to see a bracket, such as this, for the results. I looked at 2022–23 FA Cup and discovered to my surprise that the last stages are not presented that way. If there's a consensus at WP:FOOTY not to use brackets, I'd be curious to know why, but otherwise I'd suggest using a bracket format as easier to read. The text and other information you have could be included beneath the bracket in subsections.
I don't like using the bracket for competitions like this where each round was the result of an independent draw and not like the World Cup where there is one draw before the tournament which determines the whole competition. I feel the use of the bracket to illustrate the competition implies that the ties were decided by a bracket and not the individual draws. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 15:07, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is it known if the whole bracket was drawn at once, or if a redraw was done after each round, as the English FA Cup does?
Same as the FA Cup, each round was drawn after the conclusion of the previous round. I don't know the exact date for each draw though as the sources only give the first round draw date and the Scottish Football Museums online archive doesn't include the SFAs minute books from 1873–74. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 15:07, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"when Renton defeated Kilmarnock – who played the entire match with 10 players – 2–0 in the first round": a bit ugly with the en dash right before the score. Perhaps use parentheses or commas instead.
Not a problem if you want to keep them but I don't think you need notes 2 & 3 -- you mention the scratches/walkovers in the text and use "w/o" with a link in the table. If there's a glossary of football terms, it would be good to link "scratch" to it.
@Nikkimaria: Thanks. I'm not familiar with the processes for file uploading etc. Would you be able to explain what that means or provide a link to help me understand? I'm happy to look into this and try to resolve it but guidance would be appreciated. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 09:34, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are two issues: the photo source and the trophy itself. On the first, the source is given as "English Wikipedia". Where specifically? Is the named author an English Wikipedia user?
Thank you, I have reached out to the uploader on Commons (and also to the account on Wikipedia I believe is theirs) to clarify. I'm not confident they will reply those as neither account has been active recently. It would be a shame to remove the image but there may be no alternative.
The trophy itself, as a commissioned work made prior to 1 July 1912, I believe copyright would be governed by the 1862 Fine Arts Copyright Act and would lie with the SFA as a result. I don't know if that would have expired or not though. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 09:30, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: Just to let you know, I have added two images already on Commons (any further review would be greatly appreciated). I'll leave the trophy for a few more days but there's been no response so far. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 20:23, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Both new images are missing alt text, one uses a fixed px size and the other needs caption edits for grammar/style. In terms of licensing, File:1873–74_Scottish_Cup_1st_Round,_Clydesdale_6–0_Granville,_North_British_Daily_Mail,_27_October_1873.png gives a publication date that predates the existence of CC licenses - why is that believed to be the correct license? For File:QueensParkFC1874.jpg, when and where was it first published, and as per the UK tag in use what research was undertaken to try to identify the author? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:36, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have added alt text (any feedback on this would be appreciated) and removed the fixed px size (it made absolutely no difference to the image size). File:1873–74_Scottish_Cup_1st_Round,_Clydesdale_6–0_Granville,_North_British_Daily_Mail,_27_October_1873.png has got the wrong licence, it is well past the date for the copyright to expire so is now in the public domain. I will add the correct licence shortly.
I don't know what research has gone into ascertaining the author of File:QueensParkFC1874.jpg. I know it was first published in 1874 in Glasgow and its history on Wikipedia (it has been uploaded twice, once under the name File:QPPioneers.jpg which used on the featured article List of Scottish football clubs in the FA Cup at the time of promotion before it was deleted in 2010 as it was identical to File:QueensParkFC1874.jpg which itself was uploaded in 2007 by an editor who has since been banned). I tried a reverse image search to see if that would shed any more light but I couldn't find anything. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 14:59, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just a thought about File:QueensParkFC1874.jpg, as the licence says "the author is unknown and cannot be ascertained by reasonable enquiry", would it be worth contacting Queen's Park to ask? I can't think of a more reasonable enquiry to make. Of course, there are no guarantees they would get back to us or that they still have the records with the relevant information but it would prove we have done the research to try and find out at least. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 15:17, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The 16 teams that entered the competition consisted of the eight founder members.." As the 16 and eight here are comparable numbers, they should be formatted the same. Recommend switching 16 to sixteen.
"Eight further teams joined the Scottish FA over the next few months and subscription fees from 15 of the members.." Same point.
Provide a metric conversion for "200 yards by 100 yards", "8 yards apart" and "8ft high".
Typos in the code for the 1873–74 Scottish Cup calendar table: scop should be scope. Also, add row scopes for this table.
I'd recommend moving the content from Note 5 into the prose. I also don't think "Park" should be capitalised in "Public Park" in the table, as it isn't really a proper noun. In fact, I'd be in favour of just putting "Renton", with a footnote that it was in a public park.
"Both ties were played at venues opposite to the draw after Clydesdale and Queen's Park won the coin toss." But I didn't think the draw had anything to do with where the match was played? I don't really understand what this is trying to say.
"..in the 1874 Scottish Cup Final.." Remove the capital letter from "final".
"..courtesy of Scotland internationals Billy MacKinnon and Robert Leckie." To avoid the false title, suggest rephrasing as "courtesy of the Scotland internationals".
Thanks Harrias. Think I've got all of these now. Wee question, what is now Note 6 is similar to Note 5 (match abandoned but result allowed to stand), I feel it would make sense to treat it the same and move it to prose. I might just do that but thought I'd mention it here first. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 14:46, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ref #1: What makes "QPFC.com" a high-quality reliable source?
I believe that source was added before I started editing the article. At the time, I assumed good faith of the editor who added it and used it myself to add to the article. Upon reflection, I don't know if it can be considered reliable particularly as the site is no longer available nor is the administrator/editor contactable. I've had a look and the information is sourceable to the Football Club History Database and to the Scottish FA Annual of 1890–91 so I will replace it with these. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 21:37, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ref #1: We use Wikipedia's MOS for titles, so the hyphen should be converted to an endash.
Ref #5: As Gog said, what makes "The Beautiful Dribbling Game" a reliable source per our guidelines? I appreciate your reply to Gog below, but many Wikipedia pages also "contain hundreds of references to contemporaneous sources used by the author when collating the information", but we can not use them as references. For a self-published source to be considered reliable, it needs to be "produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". Further, the FA criteria requires sourcing to be to "high-quality reliable sources". Can you demonstrate that for Mathers?
Ref #5: As also noted, "Amazon" is not the correct publisher.
Ref #8: Same reliability question for "The Scottish Qualifying Cup 1895–1995". It appears to be written and published by Davidson, and no ISBN is listed either, which suggests it may not even have been formally published. What are the credentials of Davidson?
Both Mathers and Davidson are experts in the relevant field. To make it easier, the Davidson source isn't necessary as the information is also in Mathers' book. For Mathers, he is the curator of the most comprehensive archive and database of Scottish football results through his website and mobile app (link to the app is available on the website here). His work has been cited by other Scottish football historians including Brian McColl on the Scottish Football Historical Results Archive. It has also been cited by the Historical Football Kits website. I believe the book was reviewed by the Scottish Football Historian Magazine but I've been unable to discern which edition as it was published before they started putting details of the articles on Twitter. I had hoped there would be more online that I could link for you to help demonstrate Mathers' credentials but that is all I've been able to find. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 21:37, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ref #9: Please provide a page number for the information this is sourcing.
Ref #10: This needs more information about where you found this. Is this an online source, or a paper source? If paper, does it have a page number? If online, where? At the moment, it isn't verifiable, because it is unclear exactly how to find it.
Ref #11: What makes "Scottish Football Historical Results Archive" a high-quality reliable source?
The information is curated by Brian McColl but I honestly don't know how many different Scottish football historians have contributed to the website's content. It has been a huge collaborative effort. I can reach out to Brian as his email is available on the website if you require further information on this. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 21:37, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ref #12: Queries as per ref #5, but also needs a page number.
Ref #13: What makes "fitbastats.com" a high-quality reliable source?
(I assume you mean 14 as 13 is an SFA source) It is a reliable source but it is a little like RSSSF, good but not infallible. Source 14 is actually irrelevant as the information is already sourced by 13. 17 is similar as it is sourced to Potter and Jones book (7). 18 isn't currently sourced elsewhere but I can replace this. 24 is also sourced elsewhere. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 21:37, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ref #16: What makes "London Hearts Supporters Club" a high-quality reliable source?
Ref #19: I'd recommend using Newspapers.com for this, and providing full sourcing details: {{cite newspaper |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/glasgow-herald-football-reports-for-satu/133992466/ |title=Football |work=The Glasgow Herald |page=6 |date=25 November 1873 |via=Newspapers.com}}
Ref #20: As above: {{cite newspaper |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/glasgow-herald-renton-v-dumbarton/133992855/ |title=Football |work=The Glasgow Herald |page=3 |date=1 December 1873 |via=Newspapers.com}}
Ref #21: As ref #13.
Ref #22: I'd give this a more precise title, such as "Scottish Cup Matches: Queen's Park F.C. v Clydesdale".
Ref #23: I'd match the source more closely: "Scottish Cup – Past Winners".
I think I've got all of these now, let me know if I've missed anything though. If you don't have any of the books, I'm happy to provide photos of the relevant pages to assist with the spot checks. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 15:11, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks for your work on this. I'm content with the light usage of Scottish Football Historical Results Archive now, but my concerns remains around the heavily used The Beautiful Dribbling Game by Stewart Mathers. I take on board your comments, but Wikipedia:Verifiability, a core policy, has this to say: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." I simply don't see any evidence that Mathers meets that criteria. Bear in mind that WP:FACR requires more than just scraping through the requirements of WP:RS, as it asks for "high-quality reliable sources" (my emphasis). Harrias(he/him) •talk10:06, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am disappointed but I understand. There is a reason the bar is as high as it is and it's unfortunate that it isn't met here. I'm hopeful I can source everything elsewhere but if there was light usage, similar to that of Scottish Football Historical Results Archive, would that be acceptable? Meantime, I'm working on the assumption that it isn't and will seek to reference everything elsewhere. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 13:06, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Rules of the Scottish Football Association needs the publisher, location, author, OCLC and year of publication adding.
Mathers: the ISBN given is that for the book The Beautiful Dribbling Game. Is the addendum referred to contained within this work? If so, it appears to be self published, what makes it a high quality, reliable source? And was the addendum really published (as opposed to printed) by Amazon?
I believe the addendum may be self published. It is essentially like a second edition with a number of minor alterations, corrections and additions based on the author's research. Both the book and addendum contain hundreds of references to contemporaneous sources (including newspaper reports and minutes from SFA committee meetings) used by the author when collating the information so I have no doubts to its reliability. It can be independently verified using the sources listed at the back of the book. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 16:01, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ross: the title should be in title case.
Article titles should be in a consistent case - either title or sentence.
"History | 1867 - 1874": the link is dead; is that the whole of the title?
Added an archive link. The title as it appears in the tab is QPFC.com - A Historical Queen's Park F.C. Website but on the page itself, it is just History and then 1867 - 1874. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 16:01, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No other images available? Even if only a photo of a programme or a team list or a newspaper report from the time.
I know of a photo of the winning team but I am unsure of its copyright status, if I can ascertain that, I will add it. I'm happy to source newspaper reports to add as images as well. If you have any further information on this, it would be much appreciated as I haven't done so before. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 16:01, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Infobox: what does "(first title)" indicate? Has Queen's Park since changed its name?
Unless you can think of a way of conveying that more clearly I would suggest removing it.
"Scottish FA". Abbreviations should be given in full at first mention with the abbreviation in parentheses.
"3rd Lanark RV". Was this the club's actual name, or just a commonly used abbreviation?
The club's full name at the time was the 3rd Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteers but it was most commonly known as 3rd Lanark RV, sometimes as 3rd LRV, and, from 1903, as Third Lanark. I can expand on first mention if you think that would be useful. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 19:56, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The Scottish Cup is the oldest trophy in association football and it has been awarded to the winner of every edition of the competition." I think that you need to state that the Scottish cup is still competed for, how frequently and who is eligible to compete for it.
"The choice of venue for the final matches". I note the plural; it may be clearer to specify '... the final and any replay'?
"with tape between them at 8 feet (2.4 m) high." 'with tape between them at a height of 8 feet (2.4 m)' may be clearer.
"Rules": is it worth mentioning that there was a half-time break and that ends were changed after it?
It was a little more complicated than that. Law 3 at the time was a little confusing. Ends were only changed at half-time if no goals were scored in the first half and that would be the only change of ends. If one or more goals were scored in the first half, ends were changed after every goal. That changed in 1875 to ends would only be changed at half time but the source quoted has the laws from 1875 so I have added a source with the laws from 1873. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 19:56, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hey @Gog the Mild: Just went through all your comments again and that should be everything. My only question would be a source or sources for note 1. I'm not sure what would be most appropriate. My thoughts are that I could add a reference to the FA, FAW and IFA websites' cup pages to demonstrate they are all different but I'd appreciate your feedback. Thanks again, Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am going to be frank, having looked at Harrias's comments above, I don't think that the article is likely to be promoted off this nomination. It seems that you will need to do some re-sourcing. This should be doable - and is the sort of thing that frequently happens to first nominations. You may want to consider withdrawing this nomination, getting the re-sourcing done at your leisure, and then putting it to Wikipedia:Peer review for community comment before resubmitting to FAC. (If it does go to PR, do ping everyone who has commented on this page.) Re-sourcing will inevitably change the text, so I am a little reluctant to go through giving detailed comments on text which is likely to change. That said, if you would like me to have another look at the current version, let me know and I will. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:25, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, I'm happy to consider this as the way forward. I'd like to review it properly first though as I've had a brief look back over everything and I think understand the fullness of the task. The positive here is that the Mathers source can be bypassed in a lot of cases. Part of the book is essentially just newspaper cuttings so I can reference these to the specific publication. I'll be perfectly honest, I don't know if all of those are available to cross reference online so, if they aren't or if I will need to find more sources/rewrite large parts of it, I'll withdraw the nomination at that point and work on it from there. If they are online and I don't need to rewrite anything then I'd still like to go ahead as I think this has been productive and that we are not far away. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 13:06, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Stevie fae Scotland: If you have any newspaper clippings in the Mathers book that you can't find elsewhere, then as long as you know the details of the clipping, I'd be happy with something like "Title". Scottish Newspaper. 1 January 1873, via Mathers, Stewart (2017). The Beautiful Dribbling Game: The Scottish F.A. Challenge Cup in the 19th Century. Great Britain: Stewart Mathers. p. 7. ISBN978-0-9956998-0-9.Harrias(he/him) •talk08:47, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A bit like my first GA review, I wanted to go through the process from this side first to get an understanding of it. Football/Scotland/politics are the things I know most about so I'll have a look at reviewing others in those areas before resubmitting because it does sound helpful. Thanks for your help with this. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 14:52, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SC
Can I suggest a withdraw to work on this and bring it back? A very quick skim shows this isn’t at FA level at the moment. They’re a few things that need sorting, but the good news is that it’s not far off.
"14 played a match after two teams". Per NUMBERS you should use either words or numerals when in close proximity, not both
"After 16 matches and 38 goals, the inaugural cup was won": my first thought was that the whole competition comprised of just 16 matches.
"the previously solely England-based": this is rather clumsily worded
There’s nothing bad about the article—far from it—but it’s not yet at FA level. Please ping me when you bring this back and I’ll review more fully. - SchroCat (talk) 08:47, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Ps. You could add to article and lead that it’s the second oldest competition in football too - that historical position is an important one in the context of the global game, I think. - SchroCat (talk) 08:53, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Obviously, I'm not planning on submitting to PR imminently as there as still things to pick up from above but it would be greatly appreciated if anyone had the time to review an article I submitted to PR a couple of months ago (Faroe Islands national football team results (1988–2019)) so that it frees up that route. I think it will be the ne year at the earliest before I look to bring this back through the PR route so there's no rush. Thanks to everyone for assisting with this first-time nomination. I've appreciated your help and learned a lot from it. Stevie fae Scotland (talk) 14:52, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about the 7th and 8th-century conflicts between the nomadic steppe empire of the Khazars and the emergent Arab caliphate for control of the Caucasus. Especially the 8th-century conflict was one of the major wars fought by the Umayyad Caliphate, featuring its most prominent commanders, with rapid reversals of fortune and ultimately little gain, but draining it of manpower and contributing to its collapse. The conflict may also have driven the Khazars (or at least their elite) into embracing Judaism, a pretty unique event. The article has been built over several years, passing GA in 2016, MilHist ACR in 2018, and having grown a lot in the process. I think it is now one of the most comprehensive resources on the topic and ready for its FA review. I am looking forward to any comments and suggestions for further improvement. Constantine ✍ 12:39, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't too happy with it myself, replaced with File:Caliphate 740-en.svg, which is more accurate and is used in a few other FAs.
File:Umayyad_Caliphate._temp._al-Walid_I_ibn_‘Abd_al-Malik._AD_705-715._AR_Dirham._Albanaq_(or_al-Niq)_mint.jpg needs a tag for the original work. Ditto File:Анакопийская_крепость.jpg. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:52, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Good to see you back - this article has clearly been a labour of love. I am very out of my academic wheelhouse when it comes to this time period in this part of the world, but I should be able to provide the usual stream of prose and clarity nit-picks to help this article along its way to FA status.
Resolved matters
Is there a reason for the consistent choice of Transcaucasia over the South Caucasus? Seems to be taking a side: from the Arab perspective, this area was cis- the mountains; meanwhile, the latter phrasing seems more likely to be intuitively clear to readers.
That reflects the fairly common usage until recently, which actually reflects the Russian view. You are raising a good point though, in that usage has now shifted to the more neutral versions of North and South Caucasus. Will rename accordingly.* A period of relatively-localized warfare: for reasons I don't fully understand, the MoS (MOS:HYPHEN?) advises against the hyphen when the first part of the compound is a regular -ly adverb.
So be it, changed.
After securing submission by the khagan: slightly unidiomatic: the khagan's submission or the submission of the khagan. I'm not sure we've actually explained what a khagan was, though.
Fixed both.
The 737 campaign marked the end of large-scale warfare between the two powers: this is the second time that the war has apparently ended (earlier: Large-scale hostilities then ceased). Suggest modifying the first iteration to "ceased for the next eighty-five years" or similar.
added 'for several decades', as the precise count is... imprecise (do the raids after 707 count or not? etc.)
Occasional small-scale warfare continued in the region between the Khazars and the Muslim principalities of the Caucasus: not wonderfully clear as phrased: was the warfare or the region between the Khazars and the Muslims?
Clarified
the great eighth-century wars were never repeated: I thought there was only one great war in the eighth century, plus another in the seventh?
Indeed, I meant it in the sense of 'campaigns'. Have clarified further.
40,000 Khazars or Turks: the MoS would advise a rephrase to avoid starting a sentence with figures.
Done.
The link on Apocalypse goes to an article about the literary genre: the closest article we seem to have is Eschatology via its soft redirect end times, so would suggest linking there if you want any link at all.
Good suggestion, done.
after the death of the Khazar or Western Turkic ruler in an internal conflict c. 630 – c. 632,: this is a bit confusing: are we sure of who died, but not what his job was, or are we not sure which of two identifiable people died? Separately, avoid using abbreviations in body text: try between approximately 630 and 632.
On the latter, done. On the former, this was actually identical to the last part of the paragraph, so I have merged them.
Note a reads On suggestions about its location, but multiple cities are mentioned: does Semyonov mention only one of these cities?
I have removed the footnote, as on looking it up again I found it less than helpful (aside from the fact it is in Russian).
the early Muslim conquests: would give a rough date here.
Done.
The nascent Muslim caliphate regarded itself as heir to the Sasanian—and, to a lesser extent, Byzantine—tradition and worldview: is this cited to Mako? Would be tempted to fish out a further citation to stick right on this sentence if possible: this smells like it could be controversial.
It is Mako, yes. I've rephrased it to tone down and relativize the statement.
David Wasserstein writes that the Arabs were "expansionists interested in conquest": this phrasing is unfortunate: all of them? Something like "the Arab caliphates/states were..." would be more neutral and clearer that we're talking about the foreign policy of their states rather than trying to psychoanalyse an entire race of people.
Oops, of course you are right, though it follows the original source. Rephrased.
This is reflected in the popular belief in Middle Eastern cultures that Alexander the Great had barred the Caucasus with divine assistance against the hordes of Gog and Magog: I'm not sure of the chronology here: as written, this sounds as though it's a present-day belief. If it didn't exist in the seventh century, though, it has relatively little explanatory power here. Do the sources allow us to tighten up the language? Separately, explain who Gog and Magog were (we've buried the fact that they were mythical giants).
Good point, clarified the chronology, and added the 'mythical' clarifier, but who the Gog and Magog were should be clear from Mako's quote after.
the extension of Turkic-Khazar control: could do with a rephrase for clarity: is this control by Turkic people and Khazars, or control only by those Khazars who were simultaneously Turkic?
Well, the Khazars were Turks, but here Turkic refers to their overlords, the Western Turks. I've corrected it to 'Turkic/Khazar', following Noonan. The point is that we don't know (and scholars disagree) on whether the Khazars exercised their own authority in the area or on behalf of the Western Turks.
I don't have any particularly good ideas to fix it at the moment, but slashes are rarely ideal: it's usually better to be clear on exactly what the relationship between the two things is. Will pass this baton to you for now, if that's OK. UndercoverClassicistT·C20:27, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Have removed the slash, but I want to avoid getting into the scholarly debate about who the 'Turks' were that ruled in the North Caucasus in the 630s.
The eastern Caucasus became the main theatre of the Arab–Khazar conflict: perhaps fittingly, the Arabs rather came out of nowhere here: a sentence ago, it was 632 and the Sassanids appeared to be doing perfectly well. We need to briefly fill in the gaps and explain how it came to be Arabs, not Persians, on the southern side of the mountains.
It is a bit abrupt, but that is unfortunately due to the structure of the article: I would have to repeat half of the section 'First Arab invasions' to get to the point. I assume that the reader will know from the title and the lede that this is what the background has been building up to.
who appear in the Quran (Yaʾjuj wa-Maʾjuj): if that's their names in the Quran, suggest (under the names Yaʾjuj and Maʾjuj): few readers will parse the wa-asand.
True, but I find it wrong to separate it, it is a stock phrase or a composite name, like 'panem et circenses'. Not being able to parse it is fine, the understanding of the article does not hinge on it.
That's fair: I still think we need something in the brackets before that name ("under the Arabic name..."?). We wouldn't have "Socrates, who appears in the Clouds (Σωκράτης)": we'd do something like "Socrates, who appears in the Clouds (under the Greek name Σωκράτης)".
Good point, done.
emphasizing that "the early Muslim caliphate was an ideological state" dedicated to the doctrine of jihad, "the struggle to establish God's rule in the earth through a continuous military effort against the non-Muslims": would suggest paraphrasing the first quote (is there such thing as a state without an ideology?), and having a think about the second: this is at best a very partial definition of what jihad means in Islamic theology (that is, it does mean that, but only as part of a much bigger concept).
Well, there are states that have an ideology, and then there are ideologies that become states. The early caliphate was very much the latter. I've rephrased it accordingly. On the jihad, let's be honest about it: this is the primary meaning of the term and certainly the way it was understood in the time of the early Muslim conquests. Any esoteric or spiritual meaning is overshadowed by the sheer militancy of early Islam. When Harun al-Rashid was praised for conducting 'jihad and hajj', the former was his wars against the Byzantines. It is a bit like claiming that a crusade can also mean a noble striving...
On the jihad, let's be honest about it: this is the primary meaning of the term: that's, at best, a very complicated historical and theological question, and most views of Muslim theology see armed struggle as the lesser version of jihad (vis-a-vis personal struggle against evil, temptation and so on). We don't have to go fully into the weeds in this article, but should avoid saying anything that readers who know the subject will identify as wrong: that does no favours for the credibility of the article as a whole. UndercoverClassicistT·C20:27, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You are quite right that the term is more nuanced, but this is not an article on the term or on theology. All works I have read and cited here use the term in its sense of 'holy war' without further distinction or elaboration, since the context is clearly political (Blankinship's is even titled 'The End of the Jihad State'). Even Michael Bonner, who wrote a quite well-regarded treatise on the term, has no problem to gloss it like this when the context is clear: "several of these successor states were also built out of the principles and practices of warfare against the enemies of Islam, which is to say, the jihad." (New Cambridge History of Islam, vol. 1, p. 313). The reader who knows that there is more to the term also knows which context we are dealing with here. I have added a clarification to this effect in the article, but apart from that I am not convinced that this is the right place for further explanations about the 'internal jihad'.
According to historian Bori Zhivkov, "It is no surprise that they fought fiercely with the Arabs precisely for these lands up to the 730s: not sure about this quote: it doesn't really add any information, and only reinforces the impression given by the evidence further up. Suggest paraphrasing to something like "the historian Bori Zhivkov has judged that these factors made war between the Khazars and Arabs inevitable".
Have rephrased but with more focus on Albania
in the few detailed descriptions of pitched battles, the Khazar cavalry launched the opening attacks: as we're talking about literary accounts, use the present tnese: launch.
Done.
less-rigidly-organized: remove second hyphen.
done
through Armenia was a grave threat to the Caliphate, especially given its proximity to the Umayyad Caliphate's metropolitan province of Syria: Armenia's proximity is better: current phrasing has the Caliphate as the antecedent of its.
Fixed.
Wasserstein says, Obolensky's proposition is a scheme of extraordinary ambition which "requires us to accept that Byzantium had succeeded already at this primary stage in persuading the Muslims that it could not be conquered" and the Muslims possessed "a far greater knowledge and understanding of the geography of Europe" than can be demonstrated for the time in question.: suggest reducing and paraphrasing these quotes: at minimum, we want a that before the second one.
Paraphrased the quotes.
Led by distinguished generals: "distinguished" is perhaps a word to watch.
'Prominent' perhaps? The point is that unlike say the contemporary wars in Transoxiana or Spain, these were campaigns led by princes of the dynasty and some of the most well-known and celebrated Arab generals of the time
Maslama is already introduced as a prince, and Jarrah as 'one of his most celebrated generals'. I added Maslama's role in besieging Constantinople, which was a very significant event. I am not sure how this can be expanded upon. What do you think should be added for clarity? Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
northernmost Muslim outpost: we've gone from talking about "Arabs" to talking about "Muslims". This is a bit confusing, and I must admit I'm not totally sure if there's any distinction being applied here.
Have rephrased this to 'northernmost outpost of the Muslim world'. And yes, while Arabs=Muslims, the choice of words is deliberate here, as later Muslim polities in the Caucasus were not necessarily led by Arabs, and Derbent remained the northernmost Muslim city for several centuries (IIRC until the Seljuk invasions). Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Consider reworking the triple hyphen of early-eighth-century.
between the armies of the Khazar Khaganate and the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates and their respective vassals: I'm not totally clear on who had vassals in this equation: as written, it sounds like it's only the various caliphates. Is that correct?
There are a few long sentences in this section with semicolons halfway through: generally speaking, I would look to split these for readability and punch.
The early Muslim state was geared toward expansion, with all able-bodied adult male Muslims subject to conscription. Its manpower pool was accordingly enormous: I'm not sure about enormous here: wasn't just about everyone, just about everywhere, theoretically able to be called up to fight in the early medieval period? I'd suggest that the main factor here is simply that the Arab Empire was itself, by this point, really big and that it covered some of western Eurasia's most populous areas.
Not quite: in most medieval states most of the population was not liable for military service. There was no conscription, but either professional armies (a la Rome/Byzantium and later the Abbasids) or military/aristocratic castes (European knights, Sasanian dehgans, etc.). Peasants could be drafted, but this was not a regular practice. The early caliphate was indeed unique in being the only state at that time where most of the male citizen population was liable to be called up to fight. But the point here is that 'citizen' just as in the times of the Roman Republic, was a restricted term: it meant the Muslim, and especially the Arab population, and only these were liable for military service (and its immense spoils), not the conquered populations. So the Arabs of the early caliphate were indeed an aristocracy set apart from the mass of the conquered peoples by their faith and ipso facto by their right to bear arms, and this set a pattern that was survived quite long; the distinction was largely upheld in the Ottoman Empire for example until the 1900s.
with historian Hugh N. Kennedy estimating that 250,000 to 300,000 men were inscribed as soldiers (muqatila) in the provincial army registers c. 700 Related to the above: firstly, "inscribed on the register" and "actually likely to end up serving" are two very different things: by the same logic, the US has 15 million soldiers today, thanks to the Selective Service act. However, if we're going to say that this was massive, I think we need to compare it against other comparable states of the period, or find some way of illustrating that there weren't any other comparable states in the period (I can see an argument that the Arab Empire is the only really big, centralised military power in the old Roman world at this time, for instance).
Have added estimates about the Byzantine army as a counter-example, and added some qualifications on the number that could actually be raised from the muqatila.
Suggest putting that EFN into the body text; it's worth knowing that the low estimate for Arab strength is twice the high estimate for that of the Byzantines. Do I read correctly that non-Arabs were allowed to serve as volunteers? Otherwise, I'm not sure who these volunteers could be, if all military-eligible men could be conscripted. UndercoverClassicistT·C09:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
particularly the elite Syrian troops which were a de facto professional, standing army: what were they de jure? On a separate note, these people can't have been involved in the earliest Arab conquests, as Syria was only fully conquered two decades or so after they started.
De jure they were muqatila, i.e. inscribed in the registers as potential soldiers, but de facto they served full-time. And clarified that the Syrian troops refer to the Umayyad period
Small thing, but we need a comma before which. Might be worth explaining that: something like "which, though theoretically muqatila, in practice served as full-time, professional soldiers". UndercoverClassicistT·C09:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
gave them the advantage over their enthusiastic but disorganised enemies: there's a case being made here that the Khazars were enthusiastic but disorganised, but I'm not sure we've really shown it: I'd be more comfortable if we had a source focused on them to weigh in. I worry that we're repeating (via Kennedy) age-old tropes about wild, chaotic "barbarians" versus disciplined, organised settled people.
I share the concern, but couldn't find a better source. Plus one could argue that tropes stem from a kernel of truth, and it is certain that the Arabs were very disciplined indeed (infantry unsupported by its own cavalry has to be extremely disciplined to successfully withstand cavalry attacks). I hope it is also made clear that this does not mean the Khazars were bumbling or anarchic: their use of siege engines and excellent scouting testify to their military skills.
That sentence definitely reads as if the Khazars were both of those things. We have to follow the sources, but not necessarily slavishly: we also don't have to quote them. We quite regularly find outdated or just slightly whacky perspectives, particularly about race, in our sources: WP:DUEWEIGHT doesn't stop us from processing those to fit more modern ideas of how the world works (to quote a different essay out of context, our content policies are not a suicide pact). UndercoverClassicistT·C09:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've quoted precisely because the view would be controversial if it appeared to be coming from me; but I agree, I have rephrased this to reduce the potential for misinterpretation. Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
in exchange for 100,000 silver dirhams per year: can we give any idea of how much wealth this represented?
Albania was probably regarded by the Khazars as rightfully theirs, a legacy of the last Byzantine–Sasanian war.: needs a bit of explanation: what happened in that war to convince that Khazars that they should rightfully own (not sure what exactly that means in this context) Albania?
Added.
I'm not longer clear as to who they is. If the Khazars previously conquered it, then lost it, it wouldn't be right of conquest if the Khazars believed that they should still control it: "right of conquest" means "we've established de facto control through violence, so that should be recognised as de jure control too". Nowadays we'd call that Irredentism, but that term is probably anachronistic here. UndercoverClassicistT·C09:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We seem to have a lot of Semyonov in this section: has anyone else written on this stuff? I get particularly uncomfortable with sentences like references to 300,000 men in the invasion of 730 are clearly exaggerated being cited only to this one source: how do we know that he represents a scholarly consensus, rather than being on its fringe?
There is a lack of scholarly treatments of the subject from a military historian's point of view. Semyonov cites a lot of literature which is not accessible to me, and I am not always in agreement with his views (which clash with other sources I've used), but modern historians generally disqualify such numbers from medieval sources as hyperbolic. On that I have no doubt that he reflects consensus.
OK: if it's possible to go "through" Semyonov to his sources, that might help, but then I appreciate that it might not be. Does anyone else cite Semyonov later on? UndercoverClassicistT·C09:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not that I know of. But the topic is not that popular, and the standard works on it were written already ages ago (Dunlop and Artamonov). Modern scholars focus on archaeological discoveries (cf. Noonan), the interrelations of the Khazars with other cultures that are better attested, and niche topics (for which I am grateful to Semyonov, otherwise I have been unable to find anyone trying to assess the Khazar military as its own topic). Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gaining control of the northern branch of the Silk Road: my impression is that modern academics are rather sceptical of the Silk Road as a "Thing", but very much not my field.
True, but a) I think here historians use it as a shorthand for the trade corridors lin king China with Europe and b) this section briefly summarizes the various academic propositions. It is not meant to enter into further debate on the existence or not of the Silk Road.
I think this one's an edge case; it's a bit like if someone suggested "gaining control of the island of Atlantis" as a motive for the Peloponnesian War: yes, the fact that Atlantis doesn't exist is no barrier to them suggesting it, but we should probably avoid giving an uninformed reader the impression that it does. Will leave this one up and think on it. UndercoverClassicistT·C09:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Except that Atlantis is fictional, whereas the Silk Road is a historical phenomenon, or at least has been treated as such. It is a matter of historiography, not mythology, and if historians have analyzed this conflict under this scope, I am obliged to mention this. Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but we're equally obliged not to uncritically repeat outdated historical concepts: articles which have to discuss the Dorian invasion, the Marian reforms or the feudal system as explanatory concepts would rightly include something to the effect that these categories made sense to those using them at the time, but are no longer considered valid today. We had this when nominating Panagiotis Kavvadias: we had to mention that he was looking for the sites of the Homeric poems, but it would also have been a little irresponsible not to clarify to the reader that he failed because the whole concept is meaningless, not because he just didn't look hard enough. Similarly when we discussed Fallmerayer on Kyriakos Pittakis: using languages and folk songs to debate whether modern Greeks were "real" descendants of the ancients was meaningful to them, but we also needed to make sure that our readers didn't go away with the same ideas. Examples can be multiplied: perhaps phrasing it as "gaining control of the trade routes to China and the Far East" would fit both modern and historic scholarship? UndercoverClassicistT·C11:32, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Will stop there for now: quite enough to throw at you in one go, I think. As ever, please do let me know if I've been unclear or unfair at any point. I am greatly enjoying the article so far and was hugely impressed by its mastery of what I am sure is a tricky and convoluted subject area. UndercoverClassicistT·C19:23, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Arabic and Armenian sources: Arabic (a language) and Arab (a people) are not synonyms: unless we mean sources written by non-Arabs in Arabic, I would use Arab here to avoid confusion.
In 652, apparently, the Armenian princes submitted: per WP:EDITORIALISING, apparently should be switched out for a more concrete explanation of why we're unhappy to commit to that version of events, or else something like "around 652", "according to the Chronicle of Whatisface", etc.
As in Armenia, firm Arab rule was not established there: I think we mean that Arab rule was not securely established there, but this reads as if the Arabs ruled it without being too oppressive.
It means 'The Possessor of Nur', this being the name of his sword. I have included it here solely because in some sources, he is called by this sobriquet, and that can be confusing. Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Al-Tabari's History of the Prophets and Kings : we should introduce roughly when and what this was.
north as far as al-Bayda on the Volga, the future Khazar capital: need a comma after north. Is its future status relevant here? I worry that we're being a bit anachronistic, and ascribing to it significance that it would not have had at the time.
Note 68 seems to be citing a lot of quite high-level historical analysis: it also seems to be more a numismatic article for which this might not be entirely within its wheelhouse. Would be more comfortable with more, more recent and more specialist sources here.
After the Arab attacks, the Khazars abandoned Balanjar and moved their capital further north in an attempt to evade the Arab armies. However, Khazar auxiliaries and Abkhazian and Alan troops are recorded as fighting alongside the Byzantines in 655: I'm not sure how these two sentences fit together: who are the Byzantines fighting? In the next sentence, we say that there are no recorded hostilities involving them.
The Khazar khaganate did not fight against the Arabs, but there is this one recorded case where some Khazars fought (as mercenaries, likely) alongside the Byzantines. Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
a few Khazar raids into the South Caucasus principalities which were loosely under Muslim dominion, primarily in search of plunder: a run-on sentence that gets a bit lost: it was the raids that were in search of plunder, not the principalities or the Muslim dominion.
several historians consider is cited to a single source: does he actually say several historians consider? Does he cite any of them, and if so, could we do so?
Indeed he says that 'it seems apparent, as various scholars have argued, that Alp was either a Khazar vassal or a smei-independent ruler acknowledging Khazar overlordship". Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As we had a bit further up, there's a lot of reliance here on a single historian (Noonan), whose work is forty years old and only approaching questions of rulership and warfare from an indirect (numismatic) angle. Has anyone else written on this stuff more recently?
Per above, the numismatic angle is a misunderstanding. Noonan has an excellent command of the sources, both primary and secondary, and offers his own interpretations and summary here. And the age of the work is not that significant IMO; Dunlop and Artamonov are even older and are still the standard works, because the primary narratives they rely on haven't changed that much. Only archaeology can offer additional insights, but as you probably know, it leaves very big room for interpretation. Constantine ✍ 19:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm sure that's the case. There is something to be said for citing more recent sources, even if they repeat the same narrative, because they confirm that it is still the consensus: you could cite a text from the 1980s in ignorance that it's now considered obsolete or debunked, but citing a text from the 2020s which uses it demonstrates that it's still considered current. I've no particular problem with Noonan as such, but is he really the entire field? If not, the comprehensiveness part of the FA criteria would like the bibliography to at least gesture at some of the other figures in it. UndercoverClassicistT·C19:32, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am definitely not a Khazar expert, but I don't really see a problem here. The basic historical narrative has been in place since the mid-20th century, it is still consensus, and I have used Noonan only to add some details not contained in Artamonov or Dunlop. I have used Noonan more extensively in the raids section because he is one of the few sources I've come across to even speculate on the strategic motivations of the Khazars. Obviously, these speculations are his own views and not consensus, which is why I explicitly attribute them to him. Other scholars may disagree, but I have not yet encountered an explicit refutation or discussion on these views (and it is not as if the topic of Khazar studies is so productive, AFAICT). Constantine ✍ 11:07, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not disagreeing with any of that. At the moment, you yourself are the source we have for it, though. If it's true that the mid-century narrative is still the consensus, we should be able to find a secondary source that says so. UndercoverClassicistT·C11:25, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
At first glance, there's a bunch of duplinks, and the modern state of Georgia is linked, though linking countries is discouraged.
Removed duplinks, and Georgia is linked and mentioned explicitly as 'present-day Georgia' for the ease of modern readers, just like ' modern Republic of Azerbaijan' etc. Constantine ✍ 16:58, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Link more names and terms at their first mentions in image captions?
Done.
"Roderich von Erckert's map of the Sasanian fortifications" Give year of publication in caption for context?
Done.
Link shahs?
Done.
"are emphasized in the sources" What sources? Contemporary or modern?
Clarified.
"and Khazar princess Tzitzak" Why name her and not the first princess mentioned (who only got a piped link)?
Good question, I don't remember why; it may have been because Theodora's original Khazar name is unknown. But I've now linked her directly.
"Based at Derbent, Abd al-Rahman launched frequent small-scale raids against the Khazars and local tribes over the following years; nothing of note, however, is recorded in the sources." Seems self-contradictory? How is the former part of the sentence known, then?
Clarified.
"The only recorded hostilities in the second half of the centur" Could the century be named, now that we're in a new paragraph?
Good point, done.
"In the first incursion, Prince Juansher was obliged to marry the daughter" State what he was prince of? Not clear from the context (I know Albania is mentioned in the preceding sentence, but that is not certain enough).
Juansher is now mentioned earlier as the prince of Albania, per next response.
"in 661–62, they were defeated by the local prince" Why not name him, as you do with most other people mentioned?
Done.
"Excavations at Samosdelka" State year?
Done.
"under the general Alp'" His article indicates that should be Alp Tarkhan?
Tarkhan is not a name but a title that means as much as 'senior commander'. 'General Alp Tarkhan' would be something like 'General Alp the General'.
"At about the same time, 80,000 Khazars are reported to have raided Albania" and『In response, in 709 or c. 715, the Khazars invaded and raided Albania with an army claimed to be 80,000 strong』come in succession. Are they the same statement? If not, it still reads like one Khazar raid came as response for another Khazar raid?
Indeed, nice catch. Have fixed this now.
Adharbayjan is linked at second instead of first mention.
Have removed the link, since Iranian Azerbaijan is already linked before.
Hello FunkMonk, I have addressed your comments above. Anything else, even beyond the scope of FA criteria? I know the article is quite complex, so any suggestions for making it more approachable are welcome. Constantine ✍ 11:22, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"In 735, the Umayyad general captured three fortresses in Alania (near the Darial Pass) and Tuman Shah, the ruler of a North Caucasian principality who was restored to his lands by the caliph as a client." I'm unsure of how the part after the comma relates to the first part. I wonder if "who" should be removed? Otherwise it's hard to make sense of.
You seem to randomly mention Ashot by his full title or only as Ashot. I think the full title is only needed first time around?
"and paganism remained widespread" Do we know what specific kind?
"Marwan also brought a large number of Slav and Khazar captives south, whom he resettled in the eastern Caucasus" Why?
"since those Khazars who actually converted to Islam had to be moved to safety in Umayyad territory" When and why?
The Arab–Khazar wars were a series of conflicts fought between the armies of the Khazar Khaganate and the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates and their respective vassals think it might be nice to establish early on that this was a succession of states, rather than the Khazars fighting all three. Perhaps The Arab–Khazar wars were a series of conflicts fought between the armies of the Khazar Khaganate and a succession of Islamic caliphates, the Rashidun, Umayyad, and Abbasid caliphates, and their respective vassals or something similar.
Have rephrased a bit more, and removed the listing of the caliphates in favour of 'successive Arab caliphates' to reflect the article title.
You may also wish to append the period of the conflicts, such as adding from 642–799. to the end of the first sentence, to better frame the following sentence.
Done.
The first Arab invasion began in 642 with the capture of Derbent you may wish to specify the city of Derbent, as you do with the later Khazar town of Balanjar.
Done, and added context
the Khazars decisively defeated Umayyad forces at the Battle of Ardabil (killing al-Jarrah) suggest moving (killing al-Jarrah) from parenthesis to a comma.
Done.
First war and aftermath
offered to surrender the fortress to the Arabs and aid them against the unruly Caucasian peoples if he and his followers were relieved of the jizya tax might be useful to specify ...the jizya tax imposed on non-Muslims.
Good point, done.
Second war
appointing Ashot III Bagratuni presiding prince of Armenia I believe this should be appointing Ashot III Bagratuni as the presiding prince of Armenia
Why are some articles from the 2nd edition and other from the 3rd edition of the Encyclopedia of Islam? I gather that the 3rd edition has been updated with a lot of new material since the 2nd edition was published decades ago.
Put the translations of the titles of Semyonov's articles into title case to match the rest of the sources. And Cobb as well.
Capitalize "centuries" in Zhivkov.
Aside the above minor things, all sources and references are consistently formatted.
Closing comment. Constantine hasn't edited Wikipedia since 29 October, and the number of unresolved comments are starting to pile up. With that mind, I'm regretfully archiving this in hopes that he'll return soon, resolve the comments and renominate it after the usual two-week waiting period. FrB.TG (talk) 08:14, 12 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
2013 Disney film. After extensive copyediting and rewriting I have finally transformed it into a FAC. It almost a decade from its November 19, 2013 so I really want to rush this for TFA to celebrate its 10 year anniversary and also to celebrate Disney's 100 years of wonder!Wingwatchers (talk) 01:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies in advance, but I oppose this nomination for promotion based on the quality of the prose. While I can tell you have put a lot of time and work into this article, I do not think the prose is on the level expected for a potential FA.
Just by looking at the "Thematic analysis" section, I see fundamental issues with the prose. I do not think the analysis is discussed or written well here, and there are sections, specifically the ones regarding superhero films, that are jarring. There are also paragraphs devoted to a single source when this section so the balance is off and it would be better to have a clearer structure overall. There are also parts that read more like an essay than a Wikipedia article. The following part is an example of what I mean: (Performativity in superhero films challenges the traditional dichotomy of good versus evil.).
I have not looked closely at other areas of the article, but I believe this section alone would have to be rewritten, and that would be best handled outside of the FAC process. I would recommend taking it through the peer review process and reaching out to editors who are experienced in film articles. It may be helpful to reach out to reviewers from your FAC for Frozen II. Apologies again. I do not mean to come across harsh, but I just do not think this article is ready for a FAC. Aoba47 (talk) 01:30, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I stated above, there are fundamental issues with the prose just in this one section alone, and it would have to be completely rewritten, which I do not think should be done in a FAC setting. There are so many issues in this sentence alone: (Like how the superhero genre showcases protagonists with ambiguous or dual natures, Elsa's complexity is played by the actress Idina Menzel who gained fame as the Wicked Witch of the West in the musical Wicked.) It reads more like an essay than something in a Wikipedia article and does not have any links. There are also basic things like Wicked not being put in italics. I'd recommend withdrawing this nomination and working on the article outside of the FAC process. Aoba47 (talk) 01:58, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Aoba47 Yes I understand and I really want to address them rather than having it archived. It will only take a few days and some trimming and some addition there and there. Wingwatchers (talk) 02:01, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Understood. It is your choice, and I respect that. I cannot guarantee that I will revisit my review, and to be clear, it would take far more than "some trimming and some addition there and there" to address my concerns with that section. I will end my review here. Best of luck with your work on the article. Aoba47 (talk) 02:16, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All the images are appropriately licensed, with a good fair use rationale, as well as others being self-made and Flickr-sourced, one OTRS-checked, and one PD.
I'm not sure the Accolades picture is really needed; it is repetitive of the previous pic with the same people, and it has the same composition.
Add alt texts to all the images. Note that it must be brief, and that "it does not necessarily describe the visual characteristics of the image itself but must convey the same meaning as the image."
"Frozen received largely positive reviews from critics" --> "It received generally positive reviews from critics"
Done
"It was the first Walt Disney Animation Studios film to win Best Animated Feature"
"it received two awards at the 86th Academy Awards among numerous other accolades. It was the first Walt Disney Animation Studios film to win Best Animated Feature" --> "received two awards at the 86th Academy Awards among numerous other accolades, making it the first Disney film to win Best Animated Feature"
Done
"overtaking Toy Story 3" --> "overtaking Toy Story 3 (2010)"
Done
"in November 2019" --> "in 2019"
Done
I think the mention that their parents are "the King and Queen" is pretty self-explanatory; "the King and Queen are lost at sea" can also be changed to "their parents"
"but she remains distant from Anna. Anna and Hans develop a romantic connection during the festivities, and he impulsively proposes to her, but Elsa objects when they seek her blessing" --> "but she remains distant from Anna, who develops a romantic bond with Hans during the festivities but is objected by Elsa."
Done
Link iceman
Done
"An attack by wolves damages Kristoff's sleigh beyond repair. Forced to continue the journey on foot, Anna and Kristoff meet Olaf" --> "After an attack by wolves damages Kristoff's sleigh, they continue the journey on foot, discovering Olaf"
Done
"whom the Duke secretly gave orders to kill Elsa"-- remove "gave"
Done
"Anna eventually reaches the ice palace and reveals what has become of Arendelle to Elsa, who does not know how to undo her magic."
"so Hans can give her true love's kiss" --> "so Hans can kiss her"
Done
"she has escaped her detention cell"-- what detention cell?
Clarified
"Anna is freed by Olaf, and they venture into the blizzard outside to meet Kristoff, whom Olaf has revealed is in love with her." --> "Anna is freed by Olaf and they meet Kristoff, whom Olaf has revealed is in love with her."
Done
Rm comma in "8-year-old, young Elsa" and the one below
Done
Rm link to iceman as duplicate, if iceman is to be linked in Plot
Removed
Link: traditional animation, first act, ripple effect, plot twist, inner conflict, Brooklyn accent, test screening, Phoenix Arizona, Broadway theater, iPhone, table-read, rrosemaling
Done
The first sub can simply be renamed Background
Done
Add "Illustration of" at the start of the caption
Done
"to impress Erica (Gerda)"-- what does the brackets mean?
Removed
"chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company"-- decaps "the"
Part of the name
"with Oscar-winning director" --> "with Academy Award-winning director"
Dobe
Hyphenate "prince kissing the princess"
Done
"and Megan Mullally was set to play Elsa"-- voice, not play
Done
"the project entered a period of development challenges"-- r u referring to development hell?
Linked; dont want to mention it directly
Any mentions of "Prince Hans" can be trimmed to just "Hans", since you also don't refer to Elsa all the time as Princess Elsa
Done
"The Lopezs'"-- since they have not been introduced before this point, introduce them here; later in the Music section you can just refer to them as the Lopezs.
Done
"transformed Elsa into a more intricate, vulnerable, and sympathetic character. The songwriters portrayed Elsa as a frightened girl grappling to control and accept her gift rather than a villain." --> "transformed Elsa into a more intricate, vulnerable, and sympathetic character, grappling to control and accept her gift rather than a villain."
Done
The "I take pride in bringing out those qualities in the character" part can be removed since it doesnt provide any substance
Removed
At Casting's last paragraph, some actors are not linked
Linked
The next section is called "Animation and cinematography", but I don't see mentions of the cinematographer; I found this sourcebyEmanuel Levy which you can use to expand on this section; for example, it stated that one frame in the "Let it go" scene took 30 hours to render.
Expanded
Elaborate who Dr. Kenneth is (physicist) and link him (also add the "G."). Overall I don't have other complaints about the section since I'm also familiar with the animation process, but bear in mind other layman editors might have other questions
Linked
Shouldn't the design section be before Animation? Since the design is what led to the animation, not vice versa?
Relocated
"The composers worked remotely from New York City"
The localization is unique since I've never seen such sections in any article, but it's a good cherry on top for the comprehensiveness. I do question however, the lack of an editing section-- not animation, but editing.
The editing section is not possible because it has never appear in any past Disney FA films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire due to Disney's lack of emphasis on their film's editing aspects and the lack of reliable sources in circulation. @Gerald Waldo Luis: I believe I have addressed all of the above comments. Wingwatchers (talk) 01:39, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Link meritocracy, patriarchal, double standards, heteronormativity, trope, character arc, capitalized
Linked except for capitalized because there is no corresponding article
You pointed out that Stevens noted Elsa transforms by applying a more alluring fashion, but then pointed the limited self-actualization, then compared it to films which do what Elsa does. I feel like the "limited part" can be in the very last sentence of the paragraph as like "Despite this, it's limited in self-actualization." If this doesn't work too I'd love a clarification.
Relocated to second par
I enjoy reading this section, although I found parallels of it with the controversies section which elaborated more on the sexist and LGBTQ undertones; it might be able to weave into the Themes section albeit with a few trims so as to not make it too wordy.
I weaved The Atlantic and Geal's statment back into the Themes section
"Su Holmes and Robert Geal said Frozen misrepresents social identities. Holmes said it portrays a socially constructed nature of female identity and promotes thinness as beauty, raising concerns related to issues such as eating disorders." Quite a lot of names here, I think you can trim it to "Several scholars said that Frozen misrepresents social identities, featuring a socially constructed nature of female identity and promoting thinness as beauty, raising concerns related to issues such as eating disorders."
This is factually inaccurate because Holmes said that. However, I have changed it to "Several scholars said Frozen defies traditional social identities" to reflect all passages
I'd say be careful with sources like Laili which are theses; FAs generally refrain from them (except for PhD, this is just S1) since they're in a way self-published. I won't be doing spotchecks, but just know that it might be something source reviewers can bring up.
Hmm. I am not sure why academic reliability is relevant here because we are citing themes anyone can analyze even without a PHD as opposed to the more technical medical articles
"Fariha Laili said Frozen promotes feminism" --> "...said that the film promotes..."
Done
"and determining her future as well as that of Arendelle" --> "and determining the future"
Done
"She denies Anna's immature marriage request"-- remove immature since it's subjective, the explanation that follows it has a more objective vibe.
Removed
"According to Geal, Stephani Linando, and Ryan Bunch, Frozen departs from" --> "Some found Frozen to depart from"
Well I have to attribute them here because the following passages come from their work
"Bunch said, unlike the traditional"-- "Bunch said" can be trimmed since it's quite a neutral observation of the plot.
Removed
"It conveys the separation and confinement and between Anna and Elsa"-- duplicate and?
Fixed
"While Elsa and Anna follow" --> "While they follow"
Fixed
"showcasing their growth from childhood to adolescence and depicting the death of their parents" --> "blending their coming-of-age story with grief for their parents."
Already done
"establishes a poignant emotional connection"-- poignant is subjective
I am not sure. I am inclined that is supposed to be there to empathize on this aspect. If you go to Do You Want to Build a Snowman?#Critical reception right image you will understand exactly what I meant.
"Anna expresses excitement about open doors and windows, and being around people" --> Anna expresses extroverted excitement"
Done
"takes a backseat" is an idiom, should use another phrase
Rephrased
Link D23, Disneyland (which one?), Disney California Adventure, Epcot, Disneyland Paris, Disney Consumer Products, Amazon
Done
"with characters Anna and Elsa"-- should elaborate that it's people dressing up as them
Done
With a film as eventful as Frozen I'm pretty sure marketing goes well beyond that. Trailers and reviews of the trailers by critics are a major thing too. Also I'd love to see an elaboration on what kind of merchandise were made.
I dont think critics would spend their time reviewing trailers unless is Tyson complaining about the inconsistent snowflakes in Frozen II, and as expected the only things I found is them talking about the directors, the story, and the general background of the film. However I have added the types of merchandise
A quick Google search reveals this review by Variety. It probably wasnt a common thing back then, but a lot of film trailers nowadays do get standalone reviews.
"featurettes, deleted scenes, the film's teaser trailer, a "Let It Go" music video, and a short film Get A Horse!" -- > "featurettes, deleted scenes, the film's teaser trailer, a "Let It Go" music video, and Get A Horse!."
Done
"Upon its home media release, Frozen became a massive success." This suggests Frozen became popular because it's sold on home media, which is not the case. You can instead say "Frozen's home media release became a massive success."
Fixed
This article often interchanges stuff like "UK" with "U.K." with the dots. It must be consistent. Similar with US.
"and the first animated film since Toy Story 3" (2010)
Done
"reported in March 2014 that outside analysts"-- what's outside analysts? No box office analysts have ever come from the distributors themselves, so there's no "inside analysts".
Removed
Link thanksgiving
Linked
"Thanksgiving gross"es
Done
"Toy Story 2 ($27.8 million)" --> "1999'sToy Story 2 ($27.8 million)"
Done
"Frozen became the first film since Avatar" (2009). Add the years for all the other films too, if it's not 2013.
Added
Apply consistent numbers. At one point it's "did not debut at No. 1", then there's "Frozen became the nineteenth film".
For the sentence that starts with "Overall, its largest opening weekends", separate each country with semicolon
Done
While I admire the lack of quoting the critics (which is a good thing), I think most of the attribution here can be dropped if it's not just relating to one person. The repetition of "X and X said Y. Z and Z said A" can get pretty boring, the kind of wording you'd expect to be on lists and not prose. The need for attribution also creates some injustice.
Removing most of the publications would affect the overall credibility of the section. However, I have removed the attribution for the last sentence in the first par.; Removed most attribution and rephrased them accordingly
"movie" --> "film"
Done
In paragraphs 1 and 2, you mentioned critics who praised the film's storyline, but in para 3 wrote "The story and message were criticized." There needs to be more nuance in that sentence, or you can blend in the receptions by topic (i.e. para 1 talks about visuals, para 2 talks about songs, and para 3 abt storyline).
Reworded story to depth; Reworded the entire phrase this time
Seeing that the controversies only cover one para each, I think the sub-subsections can be dropped. Then you can begin the section with a topic sentence like "Frozen has been subject to several controversies."
Done
"CG" --> "CGI"
Done
"However, a Disney spokesperson clarified" --> "However, Lee and a Disney spokesperson clarified". You can blend both their sentences together since it's basically the same thing.
Done
"DiSalvo later expressed frustration, explaining that his words were taken out of context and that people didn't seek the truth before spreading misinformation online" --> "DiSalvo later confirmed such, expressing frustration over the misinformation online, and emphasized..."
Done
Unlink homosexuality, it's a pretty commonly known topic
Unlinked
The accolades section, while having its own article, must still encompass all the awards and not just the superior ones. You can use an excerpt of the main article's lead's third para: {{Excerpt|List of accolades received by Frozen (2013 film)|paragraphs=3}}
Very useful template
Isn't FII also part of the franchise? If it's that short of a section it might be worth merging into the franchise part.
I'm now more firm on the quality of the reception section, with a few comments left. Firstly in controversies, "homosexuality, and "Let it Go" lawsuit" --> "LGBT portrayals, and the Let it Go" song" sounds just right; it's not too broad but also not too simplified.
Fixed
Chompy Ace seems to have reverted the listicle excerpt. If it's not really viable for an FA, I'd like to find better ways to make the subsection a bit more comprehensive than what we have now. Something like "Frozen has garnered many accolades for its XXX."
I re-added it back with citations
"and a unique plot twist where the traditional villain role was subverted" --> "and a unique subversion of the traditional villain role"
Done
"didn't" --> "did not"
Done
"Additionally, on the Google Play Store"-- when?
2014
Link bob iger, ebay, Frozen (musical), Maelstrom (ride), Frozen Ever After, Random House
All linked but I cant seem to find Frozen Ever After
"a one-hour "making of" television special"-- no need for the quotations, since making-of is the legit name of the BTS genre
Sorry for the brief wait. I just took a last look at the article and it looks way better now. I do suggest adding archive to all possible links, but apart from that, support. GeraldWL03:06, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: In the end I wish to just let it go. I have reverted my edit to his changes with the lead and cultural impact sections but I will make minor adjustments to help it flow better. @Nyxaros I understand you also want to improve this article and is wrong of me to accuse you based on my perspective. Of Course I understand interpretation can vary between editors. I apologize for my behavior throughout the entire process. I apologize for failing to see clarity. Do you think you can also "let it go"? Wingwatchers (talk) 15:16, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In addition I have also changeds words like "captivating" to "resonated deeply" in the lead to reflect a more encyclopedic tone. I initially opted for the former because I consider it less wordy and more compelling. I hope this helps. Wingwatchers (talk) 16:17, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@Jo-Jo Eumerus I made some serious efforts to re-implement and re-adjust his proposed changes, but I am not sure if it has to be marked resolved by their approval, which wouldn't be likely, given the disputed situation and my initial skepticism. According to the talk page, it appears that the dispute boils down to "Lastly, "obsessing" or any related word included in the article is not "completely neutral", you really should read WP: NPOV and also avoid stating opinions as facts. I rewrote that part to make the tone more encyclopedic and neutral, and I don't think reversion would help the FA review. ภץאคгöร 07:37, 6 November 2023 (UTC)" to which I have reverted it back to his liking https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frozen_(2013_film)&diff=cur&oldid=1183750173. I have backed down from my side and my belief and accepted his revision for the mere sake of this FAC, therefore I think I have resolved this dispute since we are back at square one by reimposing his edit. In addition, I have approached the editor above privately with sincere apologies, and I was wondering if we all can agree that it is resolved since I resolved it by reverting the article to his liking including "following guidelines and policies" and removing the so-called "problem with their writing and the unnecessary and unsourced additions to the lead". In conclusion, the dispute has been resolved with me backing down and reimposing "that part [he rewrote] to make the tone more encyclopedic and neutral, and I don't think reversion would help the FA review." so I was wondering if this is suffice for you to initiate the source review. Either way, please let me know before you proceed. Wingwatchers (talk) 14:20, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've edited the page, and I think the issue is resolved. However, the info about "overtaking Toy Story 3 (2010) to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time until The Lion King (2019)." should be added to "Box office" section with sources. ภץאคгöร08:00, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Spot-check upon request. With the caveat that I don't know much about the sources or topic, reviewing this version: #3 seems to have a broken link. I don't think The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Telegraph and Slate need an ISSN, especially as it doesn't seem to be very consistently applied. I presume that #30 is a reliable source, in light of this sauce. #45 is using "Williams College" as the author, which seems wrong to me. It's also inconsistent with the formatting of #137. What make #57, #147 reliable sources? #148 seems to have the wrong agency. #162 lacks an author. #224 has one broken source. #236 has a nonpublic source icon, is it consistently applied? Same for #271 and #274 and #296. I don't think academic papers with DOIs need the "Retrieved" time. "info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis thesis" probably needs cleanup, and theses usually are not strong sources - have these been cited by anyone else? Have the sources here been evaluated for usage? I see that the "works cited" section seems to be unorganized.
I marked Ref#3 dead to redirect it to the archive; removed ISSN which are generated by the built-in citation tool; removed William author in the last1 parameter; fixed consistency issues. #57 has been replaced; #147 removed; #148 is indeed published under the domain usa.today.com and consequently inherit the former's reliability; added author for #162; #224 I checked them but they all seems to work fine; #236 no its not consistently applied and it will be a real pain to do it manually-I have removed their icons; all of the academic sources in works cited are pulled from Scholar including the thesis; removed retrieved time Wingwatchers (talk) 07:27, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I meant whether you also checked other sources in that Google Scholar query. I am not sure that a thesis being peer reviewed makes it automatically reliable for a FA; Ealdgyth?Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:12, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Butting in, from memory PhDs are acceptable, and Masters if by a published author -- I'm struggling to recall if Bachelors are also acceptable if by a published author... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:20, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have replaced the "info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelor" thesis. In addition, I also want to acknowledge the reliability of another thesis, Laili 2021. Laili 2021 has been peer-reviewed by three people each having at least a master degree and the second person even boasted the title Dr. Reviewer #1 have S.PD and M.Pd, #2 have S.PD and M.Ed, and #3 have MA. Based on the fact that it has been extensively examined by multiple experts, I believe this justified its reliability. Wingwatchers (talk) 04:56, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nancy Tartaglione still throws a harv error for me. #148 in the current text should probably say it's by Disney. I don't see much consistency between which journals get ISSN and which don't. Otherwise it seems like most of my issues are resolved. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:58, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The article has a rather laudatory tone. I've given a bunch of examples below, but it really permeates pretty much the entire article.
I haven't surveyed the literature to ascertain the relative weight given to different aspects by the sources, but the "Production" section feels like it takes up a disproportionate amount of space.
Verb tense is not consistent, occasionally even shifting within paragraphs.
"Thematically, it explores feminism and sisterly bonds over romance, challenging traditional gender norms and Disney fairytale conventions." – "challenging" makes it sound like an endorsement.
"During animation and cinematography, the team used a careful blend of visuals and lighting to create realistic and appealing snow and ice among other elements." – this also sounds like an endorsement.
"earning $1.285 billion" – avoid "earn" for revenue like this. Use "gross" instead. This recurs in the body.
"earning $1.285 billion in worldwide box office revenue [..] during its theatrical run" – rather redundant. "Revenue" is redundant to "earning" (which should be "grossing", see above). Likewise, pick one of "box office" and "during its theatrical run".
"Frozen became a popular culture phenomenon with its songs, characters, storytelling elements, and appeal to a general audience. The immense popularity [...]" – MOS:PUFFERY.
Plot
The ages of Anna and Elsa are not mentioned until the end of the first paragraph. Their (approximate) ages at the events described in the second sentence seems like relevant information.
"she remains distant from Anna, who develops a romantic bond with Hans during the festivities and is objected by Elsa." – "is objected by"?
"mortally injuring her" – odd choice of words for an injury that does not result in death within a short period of time.
Voice cast
"12-year-old teenage Elsa" – contradiction.
"Hans, a prince from the Southern Isles who is secretly a gold-digging traitor" – I don't know that I would describe the character as a traitor (scheming and backstabbing is different from betrayal), but I certainly wouldn't describe their actions as "gold-digging". Gold digging is generally understood to mean being in a romantic (or sexual) relationship with someone wealthy for personal monetary gain. Planning to seize the throne by murder and subterfuge is entirely different.
Production
"Between 2000 and 2002, Disney explored multiple adaptations of "The Snow Queen", now stored in their Animation Research Library." – this refers to abandoned plans by Disney, right? The current phrasing does not make that clear—it could equally be parsed as referring to examining how others had adapted the story previously.
"Frozen's concept arts from Disney's earlier attempt" – I would avoid using referring to the film as "Frozen" in this context (it wasn't called that at the time). I have also never heard of "concept arts", plural—I have always heard it used as a mass noun.
"Frozen began under the title Anna and the Snow Queen" – I would avoid using referring to the film as "Frozen" in this context, preferring e.g. "The film".
"set a release date for November 27, 2013." – the indefinite article should be definite.
"Lasseter was credited as executive producer in the post-release." – most readers will probably not know what "the post-release" means, and this is out of chronological order (not to mention clunky phrasing).
"Prior to Lee's involvement, the work of the previous screen and songwriters faced significant challenges." – a few things here. Firstly, did the work face significant challenges, or did the people? Secondly, if the intended reading is "screenwriters and songwriters", you need to either write that or write "screen- and songwriters". Thirdly, it's not clear what the challenges were, either from this sentence or the rest of the paragraph. Fourthly, if you cite a 53-minute YouTube video, you should really provide a timestamp.
"The production team essentially had to restart the process" – why?
"a tight deadline of 17 months" – compared to a more typical deadline of what?
"This condensed timeline resulted in an extremely intense schedule, requiring swift decision-making to progress the project." – we have, in short succession, "tight deadline", "condensed timeline", "extremely intense schedule", and "swift decision-making". I am positive that this could be rewritten more concisely without such redundancy. I also don't quite see what this adds to the article—it basically boils down to "they were short on time, so they had to work fast". Well yes, that's how that usually works.
"During production, Lee was promoted to co-director for her extensive involvement in the project." – the cited source says nothing about the reason.
"The team understood that the ending would revolve around [...]" – "understood"?
"the importance of earning the film's ending" – this is "earn" in a rather informal sense of the word.
"Elsa's initial villainous character is driven by her heartbreak after being jilted at the altar. The plot revolves around [...]" – I have to question the use of the present tense here for a version of the story that was scrapped.
"It marked the pivotal moment when the team discerned the essence of the film and fully grasped the depths of the characters." – this is marketing-speak, not encyclopaedic phrasing.
"Another significant breakthrough" – as opposed to an insignificant breakthrough?
"the plot twist involving Hans, being revealed as the true villain near the end." – why the comma?
"it took her nearly a year to clearly articulate Anna." – I don't think the pronunciation is that difficult. Joking aside, use a different word than "articulate" here.
"John Ripa helped resolve writing the problem of how Anna would save Elsa at the climax." – this is rather difficult to parse. What did Ripa help with, exactly?
The quote box has weird quotation mark placement, which seems to stem from quoting the source incorrectly.
"kept a recording of her performance on her iPhone" – why specify the type of phone?
"Bell proposed the idea to Menzel when she visited her home" – what idea?
"wool fabric. and velvet" – stray period.
"Her growth of the ice is characterized by a melodic and rhythmic pattern, which gives it a unique and magical appearance." – this is a good example of writing as though you were promoting the film rather than reporting on it dispassionately. Stating in WP:WikiVoice that the appearance is unique and magical is not appropriate. Stating that this was the intention would on the other hand be fine (e.g. "[...] in order to give it a unique and magical appearance").
The second paragraph of the "Design" subsection switches back and forth between different tenses.
"Elsa's palace is intricately linked to her emotional journey." – that's not a fact, and should not be reported as one. It may be a fact that it was intended to be, and it may be a fact that it has been interpreted that way, but this is media analysis.
"The animation process involves careful management of lighting, shadow, and color hues to prevent the setting from overpowering the character. Adjustments including lighting, object decorations, textures, and patterns ensured elements blended harmoniously with the scene." – tense. Also reads like an endorsement.
"For the snow monster Marshmallow, they created realistic icicles, determined its edge hardness for correct lighting, and avoided a rubbery appearance." – again, not a fact. It may be a fact that they sought to create realistic icicles and avoid a rubbery appearance, but whether they succeeded is a matter of opinion.
"resulting in sophisticated and realistic clothing for every character" – I'm not going to list every time value judgments are inappropriately stated in WP:WikiVoice; I think I have by now made it clear that this is a pervasive problem with the writing style.
"A celebrity hairstylist helped create Elsa's hairstyle, which surpassed the complexity of previous Disney characters at 420,000 strands." – that's way more strands of hair than an actual human head has. If the sources make that point, it should be included.
"mentioning the use of traditional techniques like rim and bounce lighting" – I'm guessing this tells the average reader absolutely nothing. Explain, link, or remove.
"The songs for Frozen were composed the Lopezs" – anacoluthon.
"The orchestral recordings that took place on the Warner Bros. lot, blend seamlessly with the songs." – c'mon now. This is pretty blatantly opinion, and it doesn't even appear in the cited source.
Thematic analysis
This section presents a lot of analysis in Wikipedia's voice.
"Laili notes that the film promotes feminism [...]" – "note" is only to be used for facts, whereas this is interpretation.
"Robert Geal pointed out biases in Frozen's portrayal of female and male homosexuality." – MOS:SAID.
Marketing and release
"available in Disney Stores and other retailers" – so what?
"The film's premiere was at the El Capitan TheatreinHollywood, Los Angeles, on November 19, 2013, and had a five-day limited release there, starting from November 22, before going into wide release." – anacoluthon. The premiere did not have a limited release and did not go into wide release—the film did.
"between August 4 to 17", "between October 13 to 19" – "between" is always followed by "and", never by "to".
"Frozen's home media release became a massive success." – informal and laudatory phrasing.
"setting records as one of [...]" – something is either a record, i.e. number one, or "one of" the top performances. Not both.
"The digital release also became the fastest-selling digital release of all time." – by what metric? Fastest to X? Most within Y time?
"As of July 2018, Frozen remained the biggest-selling Blu-ray in the US" – more than five years have passed since.
"similar to Disney's animated release" – "Disney's animated release" is just elegant variation.
Reception
The weighting in the "Box office" section is rather dubious. For instance, a higher word count is devoted to the US and Canada than to the rest of the world combined, a pretty clear example of WP:Systemic bias. See also my subsequent comments about specific things that have been included that probably should not have been.
"the third highest-grossing Walt Disney Pictures release, and the eighth-highest-grossing film distributed by Disney" – seems like extraneous detail.
"becoming the eighteenth film in cinematic history, the seventh Disney-distributed film, the fifth non-sequel film, the second Disney-distributed film in 2013 (after Iron Man 3), and the first animated film since Toy Story 3 (2010) to do so" – excessive level of detail.
"analysts had projected the film's total cost [...] and had also projected that the film would generate $1.3 billion" – the cost is in the past, so "project" is a peculiar choice of word in that context (makes much more sense for the expected revenue). I would use "estimate" instead.
See MOS:DOMESTIC about using "North America" in a box office context.
"Upon its release, Frozen quickly became a major success." – that's a value judgment.
"It broke records as Fandango's top advance ticket seller among original animated films" – records, plural? Also seems a bit dubious for inclusion if both "original" and "animated" are needed as qualifiers.
"The sing-along version of the film also dominated ticket sales." – "dominated"?
"Thanksgiving grosses among films released during the holiday season" – as opposed to films released at some other time?
"Frozen also set records for three-day and five-day Thanksgiving grosses among films released during the holiday season." – not according to the cited source it didn't. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, released a few days earlier, outgrossed it.
"ahead of the 1999's Toy Story 2" – stray definite article.
"Frozen became the first film since Avatar to reach first place in its sixth weekend of wide release." – if it reached first place in its sixth weekend, that means it wasn't in the top spot prior to that. Which is of course wrong, and not what the source says. And this is rather dubious for inclusion regardless.
"achieved large weekend grosses from its fifth to its twelfth weekend (of wide release), compared to other films in their respective weekends" – that's straight-up WP:ANALYSIS of the raw data.
"On April 25, 2014, Frozen became the nineteenth film to gross $400 million in North America and the fifteenth to do so without a major re-release." – seems like extraneous detail.
"In North America, Frozen is the twenty-sixth-highest-grossing film, the third-highest-grossing 2013 film, the fifth-highest-grossing animated film, the highest-grossing 2013 animated film, the twelfth-highest-grossing 3-D film, and the second-highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film." – excessive level of detail.
"Excluding re-releases, it has the highest-grossing initial run among non-sequel animated films (a record previously held by Finding Nemo (2003)) and among Walt Disney Animation Studios films (a record previously held by The Lion King (1994))." – this just comes across as superlative-chasing.
"Frozen is the fifth-highest-grossing film, the highest-grossing animated film, and the highest-grossing 2013 film." – even if the geographical scope is clarified by the subheading, it needs to be included in the text as well. This is also straight-up incorrect. It's not number 5 outside the US and Canada or number 1 animated outside the US and Canada (though it is number 1 released in 2013 outside the US and Canada). At present, the correct figures are 18 and 2. If the intended meaning was that this was the best positions it ever reached, it needs to be rephrased.
"It is the highest-grossing animated film in South Korea, Denmark, and Venezuela." – this fails verification. The cited sources do not mention Denmark at all and the only source that mentions Venezuela is the 2013 yearly box office chart for the country, which obviously isn't sufficient sourcing for that claim.
"It is also the highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film in more than 45 territories" – the highest-grossing film for a particular company is rather niche. The highest-grossing film for a particular company in a particular box office territory is even more so.
"It is also the highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film in more than 45 territories, including the Latin America region (specifically in Mexico and Brazil), the UK, Ireland, and Malta, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Ukraine, Norway, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and China" – Latin America fails verification. The combined box office territory of the UK, Ireland, and Malta fails verification. Australia fails verification.
"Since its release, several publications have named Frozen as one of the best animated films ever made" – the sourcing is nowhere near strong enough for a statement like this. The first source is a top 50 list that puts it at number 46. The second source is a top 100 that puts it at number 48. The third source is a top 51 that puts it and Frozen II collectively at number 40. This just comes across as cherry-picking.
"Despite emphasis on its story, publications including The Seattle Times and Variety argued that Frozen falls short in delivering a deep and engaging experience." – that's straight-up picking a side in the disagreement, in clear violation of WP:NPOV.
"with the primary comedy source comes from the interactions between male characters" – anacoluthon.
"However, a Lee and a Disney spokesperson clarified that DiSalvo's comment was misunderstood, explaining it was about technical aspects of CGI animation, not comparing animating male and female characters." – this is also engaging in the dispute by picking a side.
"DiSalvo later confirmed such, expressing frustration over the misinformation online" – ditto.
"Elsa's song "Let it Go" has been compared to the phenomenon of coming out of the closet." – "the phenomenon"? That... has unfortunate overtones.
"When questioned about the indirect homosexual themes in the film" – this phrasing presumes that there are indeed such themes, which is a point of contention.
"This made the first Disney film to win Best Animated Feature." – anacoluthon.
"When Lopez and Anderson-Lopez were asked about this in an NPR interview" – it is very unclear what "this" refers to. This is the first sentence in an entirely new paragraph.
"She used the film's strong female characters to inspire her daughter" – another example of the inappropriate use of WP:WikiVoice for opinion.
"In a 2014 mid-year report of the 100 most-used baby names by BabyCenter, 'Elsa' ranked 88th, making its first appearance on the site's chart." – the geographical scope of this report really needs to be included for context here.
"Parents revealed that their naming choices were influenced by the film's characters, particularly siblings." – what does "particularly siblings" mean here?
"It was the top entertainment Google Search of 2013." – is "it" the film or something related thereto?
Tks Tompa. Given Wingwatchers' last comment I think we'll treat this as a withdrawal rather than a simple archive. Pls note that the usual two-week hiatus before nominating an article still applies; I'd strongly suggest using that time for Peer Review before another nom here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:30, 10 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
2021 Disney film. After it became GA back in 2021, I revisited it and significantly expanded and revised it, adding/writing the Development and design, Animation and cinematography, and Themes as well as rewriting and restructuring the Critical Response section.Wingwatchers (talk) 19:30, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiWingwatchers. I have realised that your first nominator at FAC, Frozen II, was promoted without the customary source to text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing to be considered for promotion. So we will do doing that on this one instead. Apologies for the slip up. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:16, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I helped out a tiny bit getting this article to GA-status. I will try not to screw any of this review up. I'm excited to see it back at FAC and hope it will attain FA-status, but there's one glaring issue that sticks out to me at the moment. The #Themes section is cited almost entirely to one source, which, IMHO, can not represent "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature", as per 1c of the FA criteria. This also brings into question issues of WP:DUE weight, which gives rise to concerns about neutrality. I randomly googled this film on Google Scholar and there seems to be a lot of stuff published that could be added. Of course, all of could be fluff not worth adding, but the coverage of the stuff in the International Journal of English and Applied Linguistics should at least be trimmed, as to not seem excessive. I'm opposing based on concerns regarding 1c and 1d at the moment, but I haven't read the article in detail yet (which I hope to do soon, maybe by Friday), so I'm hoping for that to change. You've obviously worked very hard on this article and I can see a lot of expansion since it became a GA. Pamzeis (talk) 15:28, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Pamzeis The themes section supposed to talk about thematic analysis and I am confident that I have address them in-depth. If you can only put the keyword themes in Google Scholar you will discover there are no other studies about its themes. The film, unlike other films, primarily deals with trust and that's it. Since no further journals are published regarding themes are in circulation past 2021, there will not likely to be any further studies of it. Wingwatchers (talk) 15:48, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I dont think its due weight; its an in-depth analysis of her trust issues written in a character development style. Removing any will damage the prose and contextual structure, although it might appear to be visually Due weight and be mistaken so. Wingwatchers (talk) 15:50, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply, but I have to disagree. There is no way one source can represent the majority opinion/analysis of this film, meaning this article can not be neutral. A source does not need to explicitly mention the word "themes" to be an insightful analysis. Trust is Raya's main theme, but there do seem to be some underlying themes within the film. I've looked through a few sources, and there seems to be some stuff worth adding. For example, this article talks about how Raya is an evolution of Disney's "Princess" image of something (I mean, I didn't read it in full so.......). This one talks about how the film uses cultural elements to convey... something. There seems A LOT worth adding, though I'm not sure which is high quality and which isn't. Other than that, the #Themes section consists mostly of the plot, which the reader should already know. There's a lot of stuff you can trim, e.g. When Raya's father, Chief Benja, invited the other tribes to Heart, a young Raya befriended a young Namaari, princess of Fang. Raya believed Namaari was a good friend for giving her a gift and showed her the Dragon Gem, but Namaari's friendly demeanor turned out to be a deceptive attempt to steal the Dragon Gem for Fang. Raya trusted Namaari as her friend, but Namaari betrayed their friendship. This emotionally hurt Raya and caused her to begin to distrust others, illustrating how betrayal can act as a trigger for trust issues.Pamzeis (talk) 03:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Pamzeis I don't know. I thought the Themes section is only supposed to talk about themes, and I don't know that it must also examine minors aspects as well. I suppose I will withdraw for now and add them or maybe we can wait three days for me if anyone don't mind for me to look into and add the top 10 journals. Wingwatchers (talk) 04:20, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Pamzeis Yh, so I ask for 3 days to revise that section. In the meantime maybe you guys can read/review the production or critical response sections, which I wrote in 5 days.Wingwatchers (talk) 04:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Progress Check: I have trimmed it down and added the "Semiotic Analysis of Women's Representation in the Animated Disney Film Raya and The Last Dragon." Wingwatchers (talk) 13:21, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's great! Yet I still have an issue with the section ATM (I know, I know, I'm sorry): it's organised without any particular structure and just split up into paragraphs of each scholar. Could the bits on similar themes be grouped together? This could help provide further insight on how each scholar interprets different themes. I feel like WP:RECEPTION might be a good guide for this (I know this isn't a reception section but.......). Pamzeis (talk) 04:10, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Mmm.... I was referring more to grouping text on similar bits together, e.g. putting "Sisu assists Raya by challenging her beliefs and encouraging her to trust again" and "Sisu imparts a powerful lesson about the transformative impact of trust, showing how a simple act of faith can bridge immense gaps" together because they both discuss Sisu's contributions to the theme of trust. Otherwise, we don't really get how different scholar's analyses tie into one another, if that makes sense I feel like Groundhog Day (film)#Thematic analysis might be a good example. Pamzeis (talk) 05:30, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK, beginning my review. Will try not to screw anything up.
"Dealing with the themes of trust, forgiveness, and reconciliation, the film is inspired by traditional Southeast Asian cultures." — I'm not sure how these two ideas are related to each other? I think it would better to discuss its themes later on in the lead
Removed
"It used complex and intricate design and animation processes, focusing on its diverse environments and characters." — this sentence reads very awkwardly to me... can it be reworded?
Dobe
"and Jhené Aiko wrote and performed a song in the end credits" — is Aiko's (relatively obscure) song worthy of a mention in the lead? The article devotes around two sentences to it
Removed
I find it a bit confusing that the casting information is in the "Conception" section, since casting isn't usually a part of that process; it's also confusing given "Development and design" is right after, and that comes before casting
Removed conception
"the same spirits as the character" — what are the "spirits" of a character??
Well just emotional spirit, i.e. the general character and spirit
"and that Tran was better suited for the role." — how so?
"Tran learned not to trust the production team because she had unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Raya." — I'm not sure I understand this sentence... how does one "learn not to trust" someone? Why would she "learn not to trust" the team because she'd unsuccessfully auditioned for a role? Isn't that something that happens to actors all the time?
Removed the learn not to trust part; yes it happens all the time
"she assumed that Disney had already rejected her before but was now hiring her to replace the lead actress." — isn't that- isn't that what happened?
yh this part is trying to express that Tran previously unsuccessful auditioned for the role but they later decided to admit her
"Southeast Asia Story Trust" — any explanation for what this is??
It is already specified that is a group of experts ensuring authentic representation
"Designing Kumandra's five fractured lands was challenging, and the designers approached this by designing" — "designing", "designers", "designing" is kinda repetitive
Reworded
"Designing Kumandra's five fractured lands was challenging, and the designers approached this by designing them with unique climates and characteristics to reflect the diverse beliefs and culture of their people, with each land and its people representing a mandala icon revolving around Kumandra, inspired by the religious, cultural principles teaching that everything is centered around a common belief system or cosmology." — this is a very long sentence, so some the information in it gets lost; can it be split?
Split
"Kaumdra's Dragon River is inspired" — is there a typo in there?
Fixed
"who perform flawlessly and Sisu who does everything sideways" — "perform" should be in a different tense, but I'm not sure I understand this bit. What does Raya perform?? And what does "does everything sideways mean??
Just perform in general; changed to act
"Emphasis was placed to make Raya" — wording seems a bit awkward
Changed
"The poses of the stone, petrified dragons" — is there a missing word or something in there?
Changed to statues
"Their footsteps radiate" — the designers' or the dragons'?
dragons
"They approached the dragons' designs based on their glowing characteristics and fluid grooms and textures" — aren't "glowing characteristics and fluid grooms and textures" design elements in themselves? How would the designers approach the designs based on them?
Fixed
"with a dynamic form that is difficult to be perceived as one continuous form" — this reads a bit off to me...
added cloudy for clarity
"their conceptions include aquatic life" — not sure whether "conceptions" is the right word to use here
changed to concepts
"Heart set the tone for the other land" — the other lands?
Removed
"While researching these flowers, they were inspired by an art installation involving lamps that would grow stronger and dimmer based on a person's location to create the Kumandra flowers, which light up when the Dragon Gem, symbolic of hope, was near; illustrating an important theme in the story." — this sentence is a bit clunky, and there's a least one punctuational error, I think
Fixed
"They approached Talon's design" — who is "they"??
Clarified
"approaching its design" — who is approaching its design?
Fixed
"Spine's snowy, black bamboo which becomes a deep blue with maroon hints when hit color scheme creates a striking visual contrast that greatly enhances its grand atmosphere." — ...what? I can't make out what this sentence is saying :P
Fixed
"her tough personality, referencing the geometric shapes of Fang for silhouette and patterning." — makes it sound like her tough personality is referencing the geometric shapes (which I assume is not the case)
Changed to reflect
"draped, soft, and blue ... feel" — what does this bit mean? How does one have a "blue" feel??
added designs behind it
"human-touched and emotional resonance effects" — I'm not sure what this means and there might be a grammatical error in there
As a general point, there are several grammatical issues throughout the article. I'd advise you re-read it and fix any that you notice
"Raya and the Last Dragon uses partial traditional animation to create unique a unique style of warmth, imperfection, and distinctiveness that set them apart from conventional CG animations, incorporating a flattened look resembling shadow puppets similar to those used in Chinese storytelling with human-touched quality and emotional resonance effects." — I think this should be reworded. It's very confusing for me to read
Reworded
"They draped the characters' wrapped garments by deftly folding long panels of cloth" — is "draped" necessary? Doesn't it mean wrapped?
Drape is fine
"with little to no reliance on seams to hold the structure rather than using the traditional standard pattern-based pipelines approach, making the process exceptionally challenging." — so what did they use instead of seams and pipelines?
Reworded
"To overcome the obstacle posed by casting and choreographing a sheer diversity of characters" — this reads clunkily to me and I'm not sure "a sheer diversity of characters" makes sense
Reworded
"a novel modular approach of strategic element reuse" — I'm not sure I know what this bit is saying... can it be reworded?
Reworded
"A tracking system ensured asset validation and efficient use of the data downstream, and collaborative and overall enhanced workflow between departments enabled the team to creatively and efficiently generate mass crowd assets." — this sentence feels unnecessarily wordy and over-complicated. I'm not sure if it's just super technical but I feel it needs a bit of copy-editing
Copyedited
"distance integral invariant for detecting dragon foot contacts" — ditto
Simply to say its some sort of mathematical/animation technique in animation to detect contacts
"Recreating Sisu in" — recreating?? When was she first created?
Changed to creating
"Despite Tail's sparse landscape, it is complex" — it was?
Fixed
"with added complexities from cracks which had to be modeled by hand and scattered elements of rocks and vegetation" — also feels kinda wordy and clunky
Reworded
"For example, a distrustful Raya was shot with a wide lens, deep focus, and a narrow color palette, while a trusting Sisu" — shouldn't it be the distrustful Raya and the trusting Sisu?
Fixed
"To emphasize the abrupt transition when Raya was thrown into the blue waters of the Dragon River in Heart to the scene six years later in Tail's harsh desert" — this isn't mentioned in the plot AFAIK so I'm unsure what we're talking about here. It also feels really, really wordy
Fixed
"and argued for a more culturally" — I don't think they can argue *for* something it this case. More like ask for?
Changed to advocated for
"ranging from toys and merchandise" — to...?
toys to merchandise
I think the article overall needs a bit of a copy edit from a subject-matter expert to deal with the more technical elements. I'm not finished reading it yet but I'll hopefully finish my review soon. Pamzeis (talk) 11:31, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm really sorry for this, but I feel the need to oppose this one again, as I feel like the prose is not up to the FA-standard. There are several issues:
There are many bits that have awkward/clunky wording, e.g.
"However, they felt that there was something lacking and incomplete in their designs, and they realized the importance of designing them together, helping them better understand how they complemented each other both visually and thematically."
"They explored many silhouettes and attitudes of Sisu"
"they consulted with the Trust to help maintain her fantastical and unique characteristics while also addressing cultural customs and beliefs"
"They skillfully draped the characters' garments by deftly folding long panels of cloth"
"Added complexities arose from the manually modeling of cracks and the scattering of rocks and vegetation elements throughout the scene"
There are a few basic grammatical issues throughout the article as well.
I'm not a big fan of the way the themes section is done. A lot of paragraphs are still attributed to only one source and I feel like the article doesn't touch on the more in-depth analysis scholars have done
I feel like the article also has a few bits throughout, especially in #Production, that don't sound entirely neutral and paint Raya out to be unique, special film. It's not a huge concern, but it's there so.......
Again, I'm sorry for opposing, but I really feel the prose is not up to the standard expected. I think this article would benefit from an in-depth copy edit from someone who knows a thing or two about animation, and that #Thematic analysis could use a bit of tinkering. This article is certainly a very good article, but it definitely needs some major adjustments IMO. Pamzeis (talk) 12:40, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh I see I have rephrased many of the above examples. I will rework the production and theme section. The Animation section stems from technical tone influence from the source; in the Themes section rather than focusing on the characters' themes they decided to studied the more underlying Southeast Asian inspiration and cultural aspects instead of the actual themes, which is why I struggled to merge them. I have fixed the basic grammatical issues appearing throughout the article and will take a critical look at.
Here is the second round of comments regarding the monotonous use of the same word at the beginning of each sentence (two or more):
"The film was simultaneously available on Disney+ Premier Access due to the pandemic's effects on theaters. The film became the third-most-streamed film of 2021, and grossed $130.4 million worldwide (excluding its Disney+ Premier Access revenue). The film received generally positive reviews; critics praised the imagery and depth, and they criticized the story and limited Southeast Asian representation."
"The reassembled gem unleashes a shockwave that spreads throughout Kumandra, vanquishes all the Druun and conjures up a magical rainstorm which revives everyone, alongside all the dragons who later revive Sisu. The group reunites with their loved ones; the tribes and dragons gather at Heart to unify as Kumandra once again."
"The filmmakers focused the core of the film on Raya and Sisu, and their conflicting characteristics of trust issues and over-trusting acted as the basis for the film's humor and emotion. The visual development team initially designed the characters separately, drawing various designs of Raya and Sisu."
"They designed her with feminine nose and strong, prominent cheekbones qualities and her outfit based on traditional sabai top and dhoti pants with cultural dragon references; her high-collar cape and large hat acted as protective layers that the filmmakers intended to remove as she emotionally evolves with the film.[35][36] They aimed to make Raya exceptionally expressive and emotionally diverse, focusing on her playful and comedic aspects."
"The poses of the stone, petrified dragons represents the designers' efforts to convey the same sense of grandeur, reverence, and awe-inspiring presence that dragons have in Southeast Asian culture.[40] The dragons' footsteps radiate colorful, refracted ripples of light to emphasize their cultural association with water."
"The designers explored stretching Fang buildings and incorporating repeated rooflines to evoke the ominous sensation of a large creature peering down. The Fang Palace include tall, vertical banners and giant gold fang-like sculptures hang ominously from sky high ceilings."
"This transition preserves the original purpose of epic storytelling and imparting moral teachings while simultaneously rejuvenating and alleviating the saturation of the traditional arts. This integration results in captivating narratives, visually appealing presentations, and rich audio, as well as engaging the senses, stimulating the imagination, and evoking emotional responses."
"Raya and the Last Dragon deals with the theme of trust, forgiveness, and reconciliation.[2][83] Raya learned not to trust anyone in the story's broken world, while her father and Sisu, the last dragon, believed that the broken world only exists because people do not trust one another."
@Chompy Ace All Done except for "Raya and the Last Dragon deals with the theme of trust, forgiveness, and reconciliation.[2][83] Raya learned not to trust anyone in the story's broken world, while her father and Sisu, the last dragon, believed that the broken world only exists because people do not trust one another." I repeated broken world here for consistency. Wingwatchers (talk) 01:44, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment. This has been open for almost a month now. I'm afraid I have to agree with Pamzeis on the article currently not meeting FA standards. They have provided you more than enough examples on why the prose is not up to scratch yet, and I'm sure that the list above is not exhaustive. I don't want to encourage a constant back-and-forth as this will lead to a fix loop, which FAC is not the place for. To verify the prose issues, I took a quick look at the thematic analysis sections and found things that bugged me. For example, "Scholars mainly focused on analyzing Raya and the Last Dragon's trust issues and feminism themes." At first it reads as if the scholars analyzed the film's trust issues, which is not possible. Also, I think "focused on" is redundant when "mainly" will do the job. Another sentence that gave me a pause was the next one: "...her friend, Namaari, deceived her for the Dragon Gem, leading her to overreact and distance herself from others." I would say that deception by a friend is a big deal and I'm not sure that her actions would count as an overreaction. This needs to be conveyed better.
So with these issues in mind, I'm archiving this nomination. I suggest that you locate an independent copyeditor to help tighten the prose and maybe work with Pamzeis outside the FAC venue to rectify the issues, and bring it back after a few weeks. FrB.TG (talk) 08:27, 9 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiLaunchballer, and, a little belatedly, welcome to FAC. Just noting that as a first time nominator at FAC, this article will need to pass a source to text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing to be considered for promotion. Good luck with the nomination. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:16, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the image captions refer to her as Piri and others as McBurnie - any particular reason for this?
Yeah, I missed some of them when I was changing them. They all now say McBurnie.
Would it not be better to refer to her as Piri, given that that's the name she is famous under? I guess thinking about it in the cold light of day rather than at 11pm this applies to the prose as well, with the probable exception of the early life section. In an article about a musician who uses a stage name I would have thought it would be normal to use said stage name when talking about their activities in the music business. Personally speaking I wouldn't, for example, expect Lady Gaga's article to say something like "Germanotta released a new single in 2015"..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:19, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That guideline says When a majority of reliable secondary sources refer to persons by a pseudonym, they should be subsequently referred to by their pseudonymous surnames, unless they do not include a recognizable surname in the pseudonym (e.g. Sting, Snoop Dogg, the Edge), in which case the whole pseudonym is used. That would seem to support her being referred to as Piri -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:27, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"for a stan account" - I have no idea what a "stan account" is, is there an appropriate link?
There is now.
"Tommy Villiers,[3] a member of Porij" - what's Porij? A band?
Correct, and I've added that to the article.
"A couple of weeks later, one of their photographers" - does "their" refer to Porij?
I hope so, because the article now says "the band" instead - though there must be a way of writing it that avoids using "the band" twice.
"after a trip to Formby beach in Liverpool," - Formby is near Liverpool but not literally in it
Taken out "in Liverpool".
"became that day's "Hottest Record"" - specify that this was also on Radio 1
Seems kind of recursive, but added.
"It was shortly after the pair attended" - is there a word missing here?
Not any more.
"so to keep her fans informed" => "so as to keep her fans informed"
Done.
"The song was first played on BBC Music Introducing with Jess Iszatt on 5 August, who" - "The song was first played on 5 August on BBC Music Introducing with Jess Iszatt, who" might flow better
I agree. Done.
"As of May 2022, she uploads" => "As of May 2022, she uploaded" (May 2022 was about 18 months ago, so present tense is not appropriate)
Done.
The discography, music videos, and tours sections are all unsourced
All of the information in the discography and tours sections are sourced in the main body and so do not require repeated citations per WP:REPCITE. The music video section is a fair cop, and I'll add these to prose in the morning.
Okay, now I have a problem. The Nice 2 Me music video attracted no coverage (they left their label immediately afterwards) and so doesn't belong in prose. I would really rather not cite YouTube given WP:VENDOR - should I siphon that off to its own discography page?--Launchballer08:13, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All of the images originate from a single uploader - is it certain they have the rights to release these? They've had another deleted as copyvio. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:31, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Spot-check upon request and with the caveat that I don't know much about the sources. Is AllMusic a reliable source for birth dates? What makes polyesterzine, hungertv and ticketmaster a reliable source? The Guardian should not be formatted like a journal link, it's not that reliable. "MistaJam. 8 June 2022. Capital Dance." lacks a bit too much information. I don't see much consistency in which sources have archives and which ones don't. Ditto on Music Week vs. musicweek.com. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:45, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
AllMusic I regard as situational depending on the author; Paul Simpson is this guy, nothing indicates that he doesn't know what he's talking about. (I would really rather not take it out if I can help it, given that 14 March is exactly when I was hoping to run this!) Hunger is the fashion magazine of Rankin; both it and Ticketmaster are used for attributed paraphrased quotes, which I think is okay. (But I wouldn't use Ticketmaster for anything else but attributed paraphrased quotes, given that this clearly uses us.) Polyester I've tested their correction system myself (they had a duplicated paragraph in an earlier version of the article), and it is prompt. I've expanded the Capital reference and fixed the Music Week error, and removed the ISSNs. The last major archive of this was in March, and I've added about 71 references since. It's going to be a pain to update them all but I'll come back to you when I do.--Launchballer10:04, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, on WP:DOB it's said that a subject's own statements on verified social media can be good sources for their ages. That said, that edges into an area of BLP policy I have little familiarity with. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:04, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but this seems drastically overwritten for an artist who has only been active for three years. There are 11 paragraphs covering 3 years of her career. Now, granted it is not even a GA, but Olivia Rodrigo (a much bigger artist) has 5 paragraphs for that same timeframe. I would either cut a lot more information or convert it to a note or move it to its own article.
Time Out's "22 Best Songs of 2022" list at No. 7,[44] Billboard's "50 Best Dance Songs Of 2022",[45] The Forty-Five's "Best Songs of 2022" list at No. 45,[46] and NME's "50 Best Songs of 2022" list at No. 31.[47] In addition, BBC Radio 1 nominated it for "Hottest Record of the Year". — this should all be combined into a sentence saying something like "various best-of lists for 2022", or not included at all.
Notified.
I've actually cut this, since none of them appear in secondary sources, and they're covered in the song's article.
"the pair appeared on TikTok's "Breakthrough Artists 2022",[66] Montreux Jazz Festival's "Spotlight 20 Artists to Watch in 2023",[67] Ticketmaster's 2023 "Breakthrough Artists" list,[68] and the Official Charts Company's "Artists to Watch 2023" list" — again, similar things should be combined, or put in a note, or not given at all
Notified.
" with reviewers complimenting the contrast between her vocals and the speed of Villiers' instrumentals" → only 1 review is cited but the prose says "reviewers"
Cut.
"she had 'over 419,000 followers' on TikTok" → why is "over 419,000 followers" in a quote?
Removed quote marks.
"She also maintains a Twitter account[97]: 4:29 and an Instagram account" → this doesn't seem relevant, doesn't every artist have both
Not necessarily, but cut.
I can tell you this is an artefact from when the article stated why her usernames end in ".io", from back when I thought a Discord comment was an acceptable source.
"Her usual method of dealing with trolls is to ignore them" → I just don't see how this is encyclopedic
Cut.
I feel there are too many quotes in the personal life section.
Cut all.
"Piri has been vocal about her experiences as a woman in the music industry; she used a Hunger article on International Women's Day in 2023 to state that there was a "long way to go for equality", that the popularity of Andrew Tate had resulted in a decline in treatment of female artists, that when online she regularly saw the success of female artists being attributed to their looks instead of "their hard work and talent", and that women had "to work so much harder to prove themselves"." → this is way too much in one sentence
Truncated at industry.
awards and listicles should not be included unless they were covered by a secondary source
I think I've addressed all of your concerns, but given that I'm falling asleep I want to look at this with fresh eyes before saying for definite.--Launchballer19:01, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I thought the above question having a later timestamp would have made it obvious, but sure. Heartfox - I've addressed your concerns, what else do you have in mind?--Launchballer20:53, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your dedication in improving the article. There are still some issues, for example:
Citing AllMusic for date of birth is problematic when per WP:ALLMUSIC: "Some editors question the accuracy ... for biographical details and recommend more reliable sources when available". I would not consider it a high-quality source for biographical information.
Source formatting inconsistency, including one source with three(!) different names given: one says Official Charts, others say Official Charts Company, another says The Official Charts Company.
I apologize if I was unclear with achievement sources. It's totally fine to source a Rolling Stone 'best-of' list from Rolling Stone (I would not cite BrooklynVegan for that), it's just for questionable things ie Ticketmaster lists, citing a secondary source helps demonstrate the list's notability. A Rolling Stone list has inherent notability in my opinion, so it can be cited directly.
Questionable MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE regarding photo of her at Glastonbury in the discography section; what does this have to do with understanding her discography? Same for image in the awards section.
Magazine titles should be italicized in publishers column of the listcles table
These will be the last of my comments. I still think the article is not quite ready and would benefit from a second nomination after further revision. Best, Heartfox (talk) 01:37, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just a couple of comments/suggestions. I probably won't have time to do a full review. I have a feeling that a bit of a copyedit is required in a few places, but I'm far from the best person to attempt that, Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 13:07, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm about to go out, so probably won't have time to look at this until I get back. There are a couple of things I want to say before I get into the article though.--Launchballer14:47, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
their 2021 single "Soft Spot" charted at No. 20 on the UK Independent Singles Breakers Chart, seems to be quite prominent in the lead given that the chart is, according to our article, only "based on UK sales of singles and albums released on independent record labels by musical artists who have never made the UK top 40."
Piri has released songs in multiple genres, including the house song "Sunlight", the disco song "It's a Match", the liquid drum and bass songs "Soft Spot", "On & On", and "Nice 2 Me", the jungle track "Beachin", the speed garage song "Words", the garage songs "Feel It" and "Lovergirl", the hyperpop song "Updown", and the drum and bass songs "Fumble", "Head", "C U Never", and "Bluetooth". - maybe would be more readable as just mentioning the genres rather than including all the song names?
I might even truncate this at "genres", though I need longer to decide.
I think She has also been praised for her openness, from sharing her personal life on social media to subjects of works, and for maintaining an OnlyFans account alongside her music career, which she set up in May 2020. could be improved, but I don't have a specific suggestion.
All three sentences in the final para of the lead start with "She..." - consider varying.
I have completely reordered the lede so that it just mentions the genres, and then the 'frog motif' stuff onwards in the the first paragraph; 'Three of her works' onwards constitutes the second paragraph.
She holds a degree in chemistry from Lancaster University, during which time she was inspired by her organic chemistry lecturer, and wanted to follow her into the profession could do with a bit of tweaking.
I've reordered this paragraph.
T don't think tht She holds a degree in chemistry from Lancaster University,[9] during which time she idolised the swagger of Doja Cat and the K-pop group Red Velvet works. Holding a degree is not a period of time. Maybe something like "She holds a degree in chemistry from Lancaster University.[9] During her studies she..." ?
Fair cop. Fixed.
Consider moving the citations to after the punctuation in Sophie Leigh McBurnie[1] was born on 14 March 1999[2] to an Asda manager and a human resources manager,[3] and In May 2020,[13] after finding that she was £2,000[3] into her overdraft,[13] - it's really good for verifiability right now, but not so good for readability IMO. Citations are trypically after punctuation. (MOS:CITEPUNCT)
My interpretation of "Refs are placed after adjacent punctuation" is that "when references are next to punctuation, they should be placed after it". I can tell you that my jaw dropped at reading "Adjacent ref tags should have no space between them", because as far as I'm concerned, MOS:SEAOFBLUE forbids adjacent links of any kind, even ref tags. I need longer to decide how best to proceed.
I've rewritten both so that they have a little more room to breathe, although I really think it important to keep text-source integrity.
Consider rewording After it was realised that Piri could sing and Villiers could produce, they set about writing together ("it was realised" by who?)
By each other. Might do some more research as to who told who first.
Rewritten.
What in the source supports She is also noted for her pole dancing,?
Completely rewritten.
praised and criticised TikTok - for what?
I cut that section right down at Heartfox's suggestion (see the page history), but I'll take another look when I get back.
Praised for the fact "that literally anything can pop off on there", criticised for unjustly and repeatedly banning her account. I've added this to the article.
scepticism of her sex work - is this relating to her OnlyFans account? It might be worth mentioning what sort of content she has there. According to our article, "The service is used primarily by sex workers who produce pornography", but I guess there must be lots of other stuff on there too.
According to this 2020 interview (published in November but clearly written some months earlier), she posts "nude photos and videos as well as lingerie shots, mostly just me posing and looking cute", as well as "some pay-per-view masturbation videos but that’s just whenever I feel like it". There are no other secondary sources that talk about it to that level of detail, and arguably to include it wouldn't really comply with WP:ABOUTSELF (it's very self-serving). Plus it's quite severely out of date anyway (she hasn't uploaded pay-per-view for quite some time).
I've expanded the earlier OnlyFans section and introduced the phrase "began uploading pornographic content" from the podcast (and I must have been half asleep when I listened to that). What else do you suggest?--Launchballer17:55, 1 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've not listened to the podcast, but introducing the uploading to OnlyFans earlier makes sense. I'm not sure all readers would associate this with the later phrase her "her sex work" though. And I'm not sure "scepticism" is the right word in "and criticised scepticism of her sex work". Maybe something like "and dismissed criticism of her sex work on OnlyFans"? BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:58, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping, og the Mild. Launchballer, thanks for your willingness to take on board my comments. I still can't commit to reviewing the article in enough detail to either support or oppose, I'm afraid. But a couple more comments are below. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 00:58, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any reason why Charli XCX and PinkPanthress aren't wikilinked at the first mention in the body text?
XCX was wikilinked at first mention, albeit in the lede. PinkPantheress is now linked at first mention.
Piri & Tommy's "On & On"[64] and Froge.mp3 have both been compared to PinkPantheress, with the latter specifically compared with her 2021 mixtape To Hell with It seems to be based on one reviewer's comments, so is it worth mentioning the reviewer and site in the text? Similarly for Piri's voice has been noted for its neutral, untutored quality, where Petridis is expressing his own opinion rather than reporting on this as a widely-held view, which it may or may not be. Looks like there are a few other examples in that setion, but perhaps wait to see what other reviewers think before rushing to change it. (I know from experience it's a pain to find different ways of expressing something like "Lois Lane of The Daily Planet wrote..."
Oppose. Sorry but the prose is not up to standard. Looking at the opening paragraph alone:
"Born in Rochdale": Where? "Born in Rochdale, greater Manchester" would give some non-Brits a bit of a clue.
May as well address these anyway. Added.
"she is half of Piri & Tommy": Who or what is that?
Added 'the band'.
"Loud LDN, and has released": this is the third of five "and"s in the sentence. The sentence begins with her being born in Rochdale and ends up with a long list of musical genres
Thought context would have made it clear, but cut.
"used to give each other": tenses awry /clumsy prose
Cut.
"Piri is noted for her frog motif, derived from a nickname she and Tommy Villiers used to give each other, and has been praised for her pole dancing, her openness, and for maintaining an OnlyFans account alongside her music career": this is the second run on sentence in what is a short paragraph
Cut 'derived from [...] each other'
"She has also been vocal about her experiences as a woman in the music industry.": This doesn't really tell us anything – negative or positive experiences, as a start? From reading that sentence I don’t know if she praised the way women are protected and nurtured, or if they're blocked, downtrodden and poorly treated.
Very poorly.
That's just the opening paragraph and a very superficial skim down the article shows more problems below. I suggest you withdraw this and work on it a little more before brining it back for another crack. – SchroCat (talk) 10:30, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This has been open for seven weeks but seems some way from gaining a consensus to promote, and so I am archiving it. It may be helpful to run the article through GoCE Requests for a copy edit and it would probably benefit from a visit to PR. The usual two-week hiatus will apply. Gog the Mild (talk) 22:22, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about Madonna's 1987 song "La Isla Bonita". Having tried two previous times to take this article to FA status, I have gone through all the reviews given to me by more experienced editor and, after having gone through every source, I decided that it's finally ready.--Christian (talk) 19:32, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiChrishm21, and welcome back to FAC. Just noting that as you have not yet had an article promoted at FAC, this one will need to pass a source to text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing to be considered for promotion. Good luck with the nomination. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:00, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have a comment for this sentence: (Written and produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard, it was created as an instrumental demo by Leonard and Bruce Gaitsch.) The timeline for this song's creation is presented in an odd way. It starts with Madonna and Leonard working together and presents the demo part later on. I think it would be best to start with the demo information and have that lead into the actual song creation. I just find putting the information in a more chronological order to be best. Here is an idea for it: Patrick Leonard and Bruce Gaitsch created it as an instrumental demo and offered it to singer Michael Jackson, who turned it down. When Leonard he met Madonna to start working on True Blue, he played the demo for her. Madonna came up with the title and wrote and produced the song with Leonard. DONE
I would simplify this part, (mixed to positive reviews) to just mixed review to be more concise. DONE
I was intrigued by this part, (while others accused the singer of cultural appropriation), so I looked at that part in the article. To be clear, I am talking about the "Analysis and reception" subsection. For this part, (with the latter going as far as accusing her of cultural appropriation), I would remove and revise "going as far as accusing her of" as it has tonal issues and reads too sensationalized. DONE
I would re-examine the structure and the prose for the "Analysis and reception" subsection. There's a lot of great information, but I believe it could be presented more clearly. I would look at WP:Reception for what I mean. I have similar concerns with the "Critical reception" because aside from a topic sentence saying that the song received positive reviews, the rest of the information seems more like a random listing of critics and their opinions.
On the video reception section, I'm listing first the ones that point out the borrowing/appropriation/usage of Spanish culture; then it's the reception towards Madonna's look, and finally a brief contrast of both characters. The following paragraph is all bout contemporary reviews and finally, the mention of it being one of Madonna's most viewed videos on YT. :) As for the critical reception, I'm first listing authors, then more contemporary critics (divided into positive and negative).
I still think the prose for both sections should be revisited for the reasons that I have stated above. The structure that you have explained is not clear in the actual article in my opinion. Aoba47 (talk) 21:12, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What makes Matthew Rettenmund and his review notable enough to receive a block quote? In the past, I have received some pushback on block quotes like this as putting undue weight on a particular critic, and I am not sure about the usage here.
I am confused by the "Accolades" section. I would associate that more with awards and nominations, and I would not consider critics putting this song on their best-of lists an accolade. I think this information would be better suited in the "Reception" section. It may be a good idea to separate retrospective reviews into their own paragraph as these kinds of lists would qualify for that and would help to paint a picture of the song's legacy.
Changed it to a sub-section of Recognition.
For File:La Isla Bonits screenshot.jpg, I would write a caption that more strongly justifies its inclusion in the article. The WP:FUR does a good job of explaining the rationale, but the caption is just a description of what the image shows. DONE
This part was not really addressed. It is still just a description of the screenshot more or less. As I suggested above, I would pull from the WP:FUR to give it a stronger justification, specifically focusing on how critics have discussed this particular look. Aoba47 (talk) 21:16, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would avoid using words like "current" as done in this part, (current Celebration Tour). DONE
Changed it to 'ongoing', how's that?
That has the same issue as "current". Just say that she is performing it on the tour and provide the years that it takes place. The year(s) for any of the tours should be put in the prose anyway. See something like "Blank Space" for what I mean. Aoba47 (talk) 21:12, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think Discogs is really used anymore as an external link so I would remove that section entire. DONE
I hope these comments are helpful. These are things that I have noticed while doing a quick scan of the article, but I will read through it more thoroughly once everything has been addressed above. I have participated in the peer review for this article last year, and I am glad that you are still working on this article. Best of luck with this FAC. Aoba47 (talk) 02:09, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just a reminder, but graphics like the one for "done" are not permitted in a FAC so I would encourage you to remove them. I will add further comments momentarily, but I still believe the prose and overall structure for reception sections (for the song and video) need work and one of my points (about the block quote) was not addressed. Aoba47 (talk) 21:13, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In the second paragraph of the "Background and release" section, there is a sentence with four citations. I would avoid such citation overkill by doing something like citation bundling.
There are a few spots where the citations are not in numeric order. It is not required for a FAC or a FA, but I just wanted to call your attention to it regardless.
Just out of curiosity, but why is "The Beautiful Island" described as a rough translation of the song title? It just seems like a simple and rather clear thing to translate so I am not sure why it is described as rough.
Native Spanish-speaker; the actual literal translation is 'The Pretty Islan' (Bonita=Pretty), however I could not find any appropriate source that mentions this, unlike 'Beautiful'.
I have a clarification question about this sentence: (Gaitsch was not fond of the title, fearing it to be "uncommercial".) Did Gaitsch have this fear because the song's title was in a different language other than English?
Source only mentions that, that Gaitsch did not like the title as he found it uncommercial.
Thank you for checking this. I have also checked the source myself just to make sure. Since there is not any further explanation or clarification for this quote, the current version works for me. Aoba47 (talk) 21:21, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For this part, (Her and Leonard would go on), I would avoid "Her and Leonard". I do not think it is grammatically correct and it just looks and reads awkwardly anyway so it is best avoided in my opinion.
I have two comments on this part, (Described as a "Latino-popdance ballad", its sound has also been). The quote should be clearly attributed in the prose, and this part says the song's sound was described as a "Latino-popdance ballad" and not the song so that would need to be revised.
The article only mentions Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" once and it is tied to only one critic, but I would be curious if more can be said about this as it seems to be rather common to connect these two songs in some way. For instance, this Rolling Stone source already used in the article (here) refers to "Alejandro" as a rip-off of "La Isla Bonita".
The "Alejandro" comment I believe would be betetr suited on said article than on her, but let me know.
I would more clearly attribute who says "complicates" and "utopic" later in the same section. I would avoid having quotes like these without clear attribution of who is saying them in the prose. Other instances of this is the "flamboyant" quote in this part, (she plays a "flamboyant" flamenco dancer) or the "Spanish fantasy" quote in this part, (the stage was set up as a "Spanish fantasy").
Done
I am not sure of the relevance or value of this sentence: (According to Sharon Oreck, in her book Video Slut (2010), it was a very simple shooting.) Unless more context can be given, like this was a simple shooting compared to other Madonna videos, I am just not sure if this is entirely necessary.
That is what the source mentions, "very simple shooting"
That goes back to my original question then. Why is that necessary to include in the article? It just does not seem to add much of anything, especially if there is no further context on how this video being a simple shoot really meant anything. Aoba47 (talk) 18:33, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your patience with my review. I have provided further comments above while reading more closely through the article. I have largely avoided the "Critical reception" section and the "Analysis and reception" subsection because like I have already stated above, I think the prose and overall structure could use further work.
You have done a lot of excellent work in this article. I would like to take some time in particular to more thoroughly through the "Live performances" section. It is understandable that it is long because of the frequency Madonna has performed this song. Once all of my comments have been addressed, I will go through the article again. Aoba47 (talk) 21:40, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I brought this up earlier, but it has not been addressed. I still have concerns on the Matthew Rettenmund block quote. Again, it could be seen as putting undue weight on one critic's opinion, and I have seen and received pushback on the use of block quotes for this reason. Unless a strong justification can be provided for its inclusion, I would remove it.
For the caption for File:La Isla Bonits screenshot.jpg, I wouldn't just have it put all on a single critic and have it be broader to provide a stronger justification for its inclusion. Something like the following could be helpful: (Critics and authors discussed and analyzed Madonna's appearance as a flamenco dancer in the music video.)
My concern with the Sharon Oreck part has still not been really addressed. Again, how is the video being "a very simple shooting" particularly relevant or insightful to readers? I just do not see it adding much. Unless more context can be added, it just seems trivial.
I hope these comments are helpful. I will read the article again once everything has been addressed. I hope you are having a great weekend so far. Aoba47 (talk) 00:56, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Having been open for three weeks now, with a lack of support, the nomination is currently at a standstill. Unless there's a significant shift towards a consensus favoring promotion within the next three or four days, there's a risk that the nomination may be archived. In the meanwhile I recommend you resolve the rest of Aoba's comments, and hopefully, it attracts additional reviews within the next few days. FrB.TG (talk) 16:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Closing comment. Given the user's inaction regarding Aoba's comments and the lack of a support, I'm archiving this. Chrishm21, sorry that this hasn't worked out for you even on a third try, but a few pointers on what could help you, should you decide to renominate. To increase the chance of your nomination getting reviewed, I recommend you review the work of others. It is also a good way to get a grasp of the process from the other side – although remember there is no quid pro quo at FAC. Finding reviewers interested in this topic could also prove helpful (perhaps posting on relevant Wikiprojects like Madonna and music). FrB.TG (talk) 10:31, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article is about the 2014 action film John Wick which became popular for deviating away from the typical action styles of its time (shaky cam and not being able to tell what the hell is going on) for long, choreographed action set pieces with wide shots showing you every move. It helped revitalize Keanu Reeves declining career and created an action franchise that has already managed to become one of the most financially successful in film history. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:56, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This article Dakrwarriorblake developed highlights how John Wick quietly became one of the most influential films of the 2010s. The action genre was definitely struggling because of the shaky hand-held cinematography and rapid-editing techniques that takes you out of the plot. Along came John Wick and it was a breath of fresh air for having long, choreographed action set pieces with wide shots showing you every move.
Funny enough, I just watched this movie for the first time the other week and it immediately became one of my favorites. Can't wait to give this a read. JOEBRO6423:14, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Don't have too much to say, nice work. (Though that's to be expected!) Some comments:
I was a little surprised by how short the "Thematic analysis" subsection is given how popular the franchise ended up becoming. I'd take a search through the Wikipedia Library to see if any interesting articles worth adding pop up.
There are a lot of quotes, as well as scare quotes that aren't strictly needed (example: "Reviews praised the action scenes for their "fluidity" and "grace"..."). I'd do some work paraphrasing long quotes and removing unnecessary quote marks.
I noticed a few single-sentence paragraphs throughout my read (specifically in "Home media" and "Cultural influence"), try integrating those in other paragraphs
"Reeves was accompanied by Andy the puppy"—this comes at a point where it's been so long since we mentioned Andy that I think he should be reintroduced at this point. Something like "... Andy, the puppy that portrays John's dog."
"...though there was criticism the actors were underused" Maybe give some examples of specific critiques?
OK I think I have addressed all of these. Regarding the Thematic Analysis, if you see my response below to Piotrus, I have reviewed a lot of works but they don't provide any information not already present in the article since they all seem to come to the same conclusion, mainly focusing on how Wick is like Reeves and what Reeves' public persona brings to the film. Most sources that might come up in a search of John Wick only discuss it off hand in relation to Reeves career or, most often, it's sequels and so the content for a larger section just doesn't seem to exist at the moment. I made the point that similar films in the 80s can have much more interpretation because the creators are influenced by the Vietnam War (Aliens), the fall of American exceptionalism (Die Hard), the rise of Reagonomics (Ghostbusters), and the changing role of men and women in the home and the resulting rise of hyper macho leading men (Schwarzenegger films, Die Hard, Predator, Ghostbusters II (moreso the focus on fatherhood in that last one), etc.). It was an incredibly interesting and fast developing era so there's a lot of content to draw from whereas the 2010s are mainly about the trauma of the rise of Michael Bay and overreliance on CGI as well as just a tonne of sequels and the ubiquity of the MCU. In John Wick's case it is a response to those shaky cam heavy films like Bourne, Batman Begins, etc, but these are filmmaking techniques mentioned throughout the article rather than themes. The content may come in time, especially if JW4 is the last one as I imagine we'll get more retrospective assessments, but I do not believe the content is there right now. John Wick was also a much smaller film, while hte franchise has done well it's not comparable to the 40 years Die Hard has had to be analysed so I don't think it's getting substantial coverage yet either. Technically there is a lot to analyse there given Kolstad was influenced by aforementioned 80s action films as were the directors so they were technically influenced by the same things outlined above plus they're old enough to have experienced those things first hand, but noone seems to have made that connection and wrote that analysis. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:49, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am somewhat concerned regarding comprehensivness. The article is well structured, but sources don't seem to contain many academic works (there are some academic books cited, but only a single journal article, Hall 2022). A GScholar query like [20] suggests there is more literatre to review and cite. Ex. [21], [22]. Going back to the academic books, The Worlds Of John Wick is a collection of 15 essays. Several arguably are not very relevant being concerned with subsequent movies, but the nominated article cites only three, whereas close to a ten appear relevant. Why aren't others, like The Continental Abys: John Wick versus the Frankfurt SchoolorPhenomenology of John Wick (and others) used? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here01:35, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a 456 page book, I read through it and identified the relevant content, some essays are just people either discussing other things and mentioning John Wick in only a cursory way and others state claims based on information that is incorrect, misstating scenes/names/locations/etc, or not backed up by any other external sources and so is an outlier claim that I cannot establish genuine notability for. Some just discuss iconography but don't add anything not present elsewhere in the article. It was a terrible read and a very poor book that I'm surprised was published. Similarly to the tandfonline link which has a summary of "The results of this study indicate that the meaning of crime shown in the John Wick film displays and communicates four forms of crime, namely: shooting, killing, beating, and maltreating. The four forms of criminality are influenced by the ideology of masculinity and extremism. Masculinity is a cultural construction attached to men, extremism is a radical belief in a concept. The ideology of masculinity is constructed from the ideology of patriarchy and capitalism and the ideology of extremism is constructed from the ideology of fanaticism." That isn't particularly novel, insightful, or thoughtful content and appears to be operating at the most base level, but I also cannot find any independent notability to any of the three authors either outside of these essays and/or assocation with the university sans role. I will take another look at Google Scholar but I did evaluate the many available sources but most just restate what is already present in the article, and per the link you have shared, most of the results are for later films in the series or are talking about the film in an off hand way such as the one discussing Keanu Reeves, the evolution of the action genre, or are foreign language meaning any intended analysis is likely lost in translation. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 13:00, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So I've researched these and only found one that talks directly about the film (John Wick, and the myths and tensions between star brands and franchise properties), and even then it's only in the context of Keanu Reeves external stardom and influence on the film, which is present in the article but I will add that source tomorrow to back up existing content. I think my previous Analysis sections demonstrate that I do the research on these films, but John Wick is only an 8 year old film that was a modest success leading to bigger things, it's neither 30+ years old like Die Hard or an action film from the 80s where they're all compared to the Vietnam War and influenced by Reagonomics and the rise of ultra macho men coinciding with efforts to reestablish American exceptionalism, so I just don't think the content is there yet. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 23:57, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the reply, which I consider well argued. I don't have any further objections as I concur this is not a topic that will have a lot of academic souces about itself, and I AGF that you've read all of the sources and cited the most relevant ones. Given "It was a terrible read and a very poor book that I'm surprised was published", I'd even encurage you to write an acadeic review of the book and publish it somewhere (in a sociology / media journal) - those are not hard to write (~800 words or so on average). I've published a few and would be happy to offer assistance on or off wiki if needed. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here01:55, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have not seen this film (that seems to be a recurring theme with your articles and me). It's been a while since I reviewed one of your articles, so I will try not to screw anything up.
"on October 7, 2013, on" (the one in the lead) — I have not read the rest of the article, so I might just be missing context, but is the exact date so significant it deserves a lead mention??
"kills him and escapes" — Is "him" John or Harry? OK, me from the future here. I thought "him" was John and read the rest of the plot, and was really confused on how John was doing all this stuff.
"moved closer to the film industry in Los Angeles" — does this mean he moved to LA or a city close to LA??
"Reeves's personal experience with bereavement" — is there anything else that can be said about this experience?
I'm the end of the casting section right now. It might be a week or so before I can complete this review given the article's pretty long (actually it's pretty short for a DWB article, but...) Pamzeis (talk) 02:30, 20 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"combines the familiar in the private" — sorry if this is obvious, but what does "familiar" refer to here? And familiar to whom??
"while some aspects of the underworld did not work" — is very vague... is this bit needed?
"Supervising stunt coordinator J. J. Perry; Stahelski; and 87Eleven Productions associates John Valera, Jon Eusebio, Danny Hernandez, Guillermo Grispo, Eric Brown, the Machado brothers, Jackson Spidell, and armorer Taran Butler; had developed for an earlier film a combat style" — I'm really confused what is being said here. So would I be correct thinking that all these people worked on some film released before John Wick with that combat style?
"and lit characters to maintain" — what manner/style did he light the characters in? Or like, were all the character not in shadows or something?
"difficulties filming the scene because" — which scene? The previous sentence refers to the plural "scenes"
"this received a more positive response from Iwanyk, who said: "Holy shit! This is good!"" — is this necessary? One would assume the final cut received a positive response if it was redone because Iwanyk disliked it
"criticism the actors were underused" — McShane and Nygv-ist... how do you spell it? OK, I wasn't that far off, it's "Nyqvist". Back to the point, McShane and Nyqvist specifically or also other supporting actors?
Hi Pamzeis, I've done most of these except "and lit characters to maintain". I might be lacking the technical knowledge to fully understand what he means. The full quote from the book is "At the beginning of John Wick there was a lot of sigt light, but there was also some hard. It's not always a hard light, but there's a lot of in and out that sometimes are between color, and sometimes between shadow and a hard source. Even when he (I believe he means John Wick) goes to the club, he's in shadow, and he steps into the light. There's a lot of those things to keep the mystery. There's always so much mystery between characters, you don't know who to trust. Even when he goes with Willem Dafoe and opens the window and there's the shafts of light. Again, you wanted to give them options and choices to who lights who. Who's in the light and who's in the dark. Always. So I just went with it. Every scene-and with every character-I tried to tell a story with light." I don't know if that makes any more sense to you than me, I'm open to suggestions on how to rephrase that part. EDIT: I believe he's referring to Hard and soft light but I don't understand it enough to convey it. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:03, 22 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"It fails the requirement of objectivity because John is the protagonist and is generally presented positively." — seems like this is an opinion, but it's stated as a fact
"John Wick is regarded as one of the best action films ever made." — By whom?
"popular film series such as Die Hard and Rambo had been generally replaced with "forgettable" fare that heavily relied on CGI, shaky camera movements, and rapid edits, or a focus on larger-than-life superhuman bouts in superhero films." — is stated in wikivoice when it's an opinion
"John as a groundbreaking role for Reeves whose pragmatic attitude, slick appearance, and relatable revenge story" — sounds like its saying Reeves, not John, has these characteristics
HiPamzeis, I've done most of these, I was a bit confused by the third point because the segment starts saying its commentary by publications? Is it still not classed as opinion? Darkwarriorblake (talk) 15:38, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the late reply, but what I'm trying to say is: it isn't made clear/established that that sentence is also an opinion. From my interpretation, the article is presenting it as a factual explanation for why action films were in decline, not additional commentary by the publications. Bottom line: that bit needs in-text attribution IMO. Pamzeis (talk) 14:54, 29 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reviewing this version, spot-check upon request and keep in mind that popular culture isn't my area of expertise. Have these sources been mined for stuff? Is JoBlo.com a reliable source? Apart from the free-access icons, the source formatting seems consistent. Is https://www.fancypantshomes.com/ really the best source for the where it was casted claims? Ditto using Carl F. Bucherer as a source - I think using a source associated with the film and not the company would be better. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:39, 26 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
HiJo-Jo Eumerus, if you see my responses to Piotrus and Joe above, I have gone through google scholar, I've bought books, read a 300+ page that was pretty much fluff, I have done a lot of research on the academic side, and while I won't reiterate what I've said above as it was quite lengthy, I have reviewed sources appropriately.
Fancypantshome is a stupid name but it is specialized in what it is sourcing and does have an Abous Us page that lists the writer among hte staff here
Yes I believe JoBlo to be reliable, it's been around for 25+ years and regularly features industry news ahead of some contemporaries, and has been mentioned by sites such as Variety and filmmakers such as Kevin Smith.
The problem I see with fancypantshome is that the source link reads like a typical corporate website, not the kind of place where I'd go look for casting information. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:54, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, do you mean Casting? The fancy pants home reference is only being used for "The first five days of filming began in Mill Neck village with scenes at John's house." Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:00, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to get round to this in the next few days. As an initial comment, I stand by what I said on the talk page about the car details in the plot section a few months ago. TompaDompa (talk) 01:42, 27 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have given a number of examples below (e.g. the thing about chasing superlatives), and they are non-exhaustive. This article looks like a labour of love, which is to say that it reads as if it were written by a fan of the film. It is of course expected that film articles will to a large extent be written by fans (because fans are more likely to be interested in working on the article than non-fans), but it's not supposed to shine through. TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, that is not the case, my project is taking important films from each year and elevating them. I haven't seen Se7en or Saving Private Ryan for probably 20 years before writing their articles, where my favorite film of 1995 and 1997, respectively, would be Die Hard With a Vengeance and There's Something About Mary/Blade. If I were doing films in a series I liked the most I'd have done John Wick 2. Superlatives are exaggerated statements and you mainly seemed to mention the "best action" and the like, and I've sourced these amply, they're not exaggerated descriptors.Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:11, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not terribly impressed by the images. Seven out of ten are just headshots of people, with the other three being the poster, the Beaver Building, and an additional photograph of Reeves where he poses for the camera.
I'm not sure what you're asking here? It's pictures of people in the film, a picture of the most important building in the film, and a picture of Reeves at a screening of the film. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would argue that any information there is only going to come from those involved for the most part. We know when filming for Mission Impossible Fallout ended because Christopher McQuarrie posted on his instagram and a few sites reposted that information. It is/was a relatively small film and wasn't getting a substantial amount of coverage, it was only bought for distribution two months before its release and was expected to be another low-bduget Keanu Reeves failure so some info is going to come from interviews, I wouldn't say a lot of the references are such and where they are they are still reliable sources. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:11, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are very many quotes. To me, it affects the overall impression negatively.
There are certain things I can't phrase in a neutral way or convey the same meaning as "doesn't say a lot, but when he does, the Earth moves. If John and Viggo are the gods of New York, Winston is the titan" when its the actors opinion of the character Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't disagree in principle that some things need to be given as verbatim quotes, but we don't seem to agree about the number of instances where that's necessary. I don't think that format is needed for either of the two quotes with profanity, for instance. TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is a fairly lengthy article at more than 8,000 words. It need not be as lengthy as it is. Copyediting for brevity and removing extraneous details could probably shorten this by about a thousand words.
It's in no way lengthy, it's one of my shorter articles, see WP:SIZE. It's already been copy edited, removing 1000 words from it would make it a crappy article, that's a lot of content. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect we will have to agree to disagree about whether 8,000 words is lengthy. An article being lengthy is not necessarily a problem—I have written articles of similar length myself—but articles shouldn't be longer than they need to be. I'm not suggesting a WP:SIZESPLIT here (that's certainly not motivated), I'm saying judicious copyediting could "trim the fat", as it were. TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
WP:FACR 1c requires high-quality sources (not just reliable ones), and there are quite a few sources cited in the article that I would not characterize as high-quality. Screen Rant is an obvious example. I don't know if there are better sources that could be used, but it's not a good sign.
There was a source review above and sources such as Screen Rant have been used in lots of the featured articles I've passed recently. I regularly get rid of sources even when they have all the content I could hope for if they're not reliable. Not everything can be the New York Times and Vanity Fair won't be releasing articles regularly on a 2014 action film. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That discussion isn't over but in this case I would argue that all four people (Leitch, Kolstad, Reeves, and Stahelski) are fundamental to its success, it's Kolstad's script which is considered original, it's Leitch and Stahelski's experience as stunt coordinators that let them direct the action in a way that popularized the longer complex takes over the constant quick cuts of confusing close ups, another reason the film stood out, and the analysis near the bottom identifies Reeves public persona as fundamental to the title character. I think Reeves introduction works well in the article where it is as he is introduced very early but it's integrated well with the plot summary. Leitch obviously isn't present as he isn't credited as a director. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:11, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Lionsgate Films purchased the distribution rights two months before its October 24, 2014, release date." – seems ungrammatical. "Its" refers to the film, which isn't mentioned in the sentence (trivially fixable by adding "to the film" after "distribution rights").
"Retrospectively, John Wick is considered one of the greatest action films ever made" – this is a very strong statement to make about a film released not even a decade ago. The sourcing in the body (see below) does not remotely justify this.
"John races to New York Harbor, where he fights and mortally wounds Viggo. Resigned to dying from his injuries, John watches on his phone a video of Helen telling him they need to go home." – coming right after a mention of Viggo being mortally wounded, "Resigned to dying from his injuries" would intuitively seem to refer to Viggo rather than John, making this something like a garden-path sentence.
New comment: I would try to cut down on the word "believe" in this section. It's used quite a bit where other words might be better—"believe" carries the connotation of being incorrect or unjustified. For instance, instead of "believing their style matched the script's tone" I might say "feeling their style matched the script's tone", instead of "because he believed the character would maintain his health to keep up with younger assassins" I might say "because he reasoned the character would maintain his health to keep up with younger assassins", and instead of "which they believed resulted in confusing action sequences" I might say "which they found to result in confusing action sequences" or "which they viewed as resulting in confusing action sequences". On the other hand, for "Iwanyk, who believed it would alienate audiences" the word "believe" is indeed the best choice.TompaDompa (talk) 23:30, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"During the early 2000s, Derek Kolstad struggled to gain recognition as a screenwriter, despite being related to successful author Lori Wick." – this observation seems rather strange to me. I wouldn't necessarily expect a relative (neither biography specifies their exact relationship) of a successful author to ipso facto make it as a screenwriter, and Lori Wick is not exactly a household name.
The first paragraph consists mostly of fairly tangential details that would seem a better fit in the Derek Kolstad article.
Not really, it's setting up where he was as a writer and that John Wick was his first progression and success. If it was a regular occurrence for him the film would be less of an achievement. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can see what you're going for, but things like moving to Los Angeles before almost immediately moving away again are just extraneous levels of detail for this article, "With encouragement from his wife Sonja" reads like something from an outlet that is trying to elicit an emotional response (e.g. a human-interest story) in this context, and starting in the early 2000s and outlining the number of screenplays per year before going into how many screenplays he wrote in total before one was picked up just makes the paragraph needlessly lengthy. Simply stating when he started writing and how many screenplays he wrote before one was picked up gives the reader all the context they need for this film. One or two concise sentences would do the trick, and it might not even need to be a stand-alone paragraph. TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So the reason his wife is mentioned is because he was ready to give up. I think it's unfair to dismiss her contribution, however seemingly minor, since if he gives up there is no John Wick franchise. I've reworded it a bit though. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:11, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The script included elements such as John's elderly dog, his long-deceased wife Charon, Winston, the Continental, and the underworld gold coins" – is a comma missing in "his long-deceased wife Charon" or was his wife named after the ferryman in this draft?
New comment: "John was made younger, and Reeves intended to portray him as a 35-year-old." – I think it's necessary to state Reeves' age for context here.TompaDompa (talk) 23:30, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"he also took tactical-gun courses with the Los Angeles SWAT and Navy SEALs. He also learned stunt driving skills, including how to drift a car while aiming a gun." – a bit clunky with two "he also" in quick succession.
"He generally played his character as a straight man with some quirks." – that's a rather odd description, and it doesn't match the one given by the source particularly well (which says "We tempered the over-the-top action with sort of dry, comedic moments. We had great performances and input from Michael Nyqvist who played it straight and he was excellent. He was a quirky villain.").
I was confused on this one, the quote you've added says he played it straight, he was a quirky villain, and the content in the article says he played it as a straight man, with quirks. I'm not sure where the deviation is. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Playing something straight and being a straight man are two completely different things. The former is when a portrayal of something conforms to audience expectations of that thing without e.g. exaggeration, subversion, or meta-humour. The latter is an archetype in a comedy duo (or occasionally larger groups).TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"He found some of the physical punishment his character endures and spontaneous additions of Russian dialogue he had to quickly learn difficult." – this is a bit difficult to parse.
New comment: "Moynahan did not read the script in its entirety, wanting to know only as much as Helen would know about John." – this is the fourth and last sentence in the paragraph that has up to this point been all about Adrianne Palicki and her character Ms. Perkins. It flows rather poorly as a result. I've read this a couple of times over the last month or so, and (not being familiar with either Palicki or Moynahan outside of this) I have more than once had to go back and re-read the paragraph to double-check which sentences are about which actor and character upon reaching the end of the paragraph. At minimum, Bridget Moynahan should get her full name and a link. The same issue of the paragraph switching subject in a way that readers may not consciously notice at first is present in the preceding paragraph about at first Michael Nyqvist/Viggo and then Alfie Allen/Iosef, though it's not as pronounced there. Try to find a way to make the end of one subject and the start of another stand out more (to readers unfamiliar with all the actors and characters, it's easy to lose track in what amounts to a mishmash of names); leading with a link to the actor accomplishes this fairly effectively, and phrasing sentences so they come across less as a continuation of the previous one also helps.TompaDompa (talk) 23:30, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
New comment: "residents were resistant to film trailers" – I daresay most people will instinctively parse this as referring to Trailer (promotion) rather than the presumably-intended mobile unit (as in "I'll be in my trailer").TompaDompa (talk) 23:30, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The "Design" subsection has a fair amount of implicit and explicit repetition. Lee Marvin and Steve McQueen are mentioned twice, and Point Blank starring Marvin is mentioned separately. John Woo's style is mentioned separately from the style in The Killer which he directed, and so on.
New comment: "to complete a stunt in which Wick is struck by a car" – up to this point the title character has consistently been referred to either by full name or first name.TompaDompa (talk) 23:30, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"considered a premium theatrical experience" is not much better. IMAX is literally a premium theatrical experience in the sense that it is a more expensive one. If "premium" is meant to denote "superior" here, a different word choice should be used.TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"By October 2014, the box office was facing a downturn." – the box office? That should indicate that we're talking worldwide, but the IndieWire source specifies that it's about the US/Canada market.
The "Context" subsection seems rather dubious in terms of relevance. It's not exactly astonishing that the overall box office sometimes underperforms and sometimes overperforms.
It's a brief section establishing the context of what John Wick was released into, yes cinema takings ebb and flow but nearly 10 years removed it helps the reader understand John Wick's release environment and the kind of films it was released alongside.Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They don't talk about John Wick at all because it wasn't a blip on anyone's radar, Wick is only generally mentioned in retrospect once it turned outt o be a success and that noone expected it to do well until it did. I'm not trying to craft a narrative, the sources are generally industry professional analysis and it provided some additional context, especially since it's success was unexpected but still very modest and so there isn't a great deal of context that can be provided in the box office section. The only other organic links there are Ouija and Fury, two films that have since been completely forgotten and so don't provide much to the reader. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:11, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's kind of my point. I get that you are trying to establish context and are not consciously crafting a favourable narrative, but the choice of details to provide and the way in which they are presented creates a framing nonetheless, and in this case it is a fairly flattering one. That's a problem when it comes from Wikipedia rather than from our sources. TompaDompa (talk) 21:34, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
:/ I'm not sure what it's flattering? It talks about a downturn, struggles due to emerging distribution methods and films anticipated to buck the trend. The last sentence about low expectations for John Wick are necessary to later say it defied those expectations. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, it's obviously a far cry from something ridiculously puffery-filled like "In 2014, the box office was in a dismal state until John Wick defied all expectations and single-handedly saved the moviemaking industry", but it nevertheless reads a fair bit as the set-up for an underdog story of sorts. Which is fine if the sources emphasize these points to create that impression, but not if we do. TompaDompa (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're misreading it or approaching it from some presumption of my intent when writing it, it's saying the outlook was crap and the outlook for John Wick was even crappier. A separate section talks about it defying expectations but you're inferring an intent where there isn't one. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 19:51, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're acting in good faith, but the intent is also kind of beside the point here. I'm saying it reads as the setup for an underdog story, whether or not it was meant to. You say that "it's saying the outlook was crap and the outlook for John Wick was even crappier", and... well, precisely. We are in agreement about that. My point is that it needs to be context that the sources on the film deem relevant for it to be appropriate to include here, because the outlook being crap is a framing that gives the reader a certain impression. Context creates subtext, if you will. TompaDompa (talk) 20:19, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ok I put the text into chatGPT and asked it specifically "Does the tone of this text seem like it's promoting John Wick as an underdog story?" It's response was "The tone of the text does not necessarily promote John Wick as an underdog story. Instead, it provides context about the overall state of the U.S. and Canadian box office in October 2014, highlighting a downturn and various factors contributing to the decline in revenue. It mentions that expectations for John Wick were low, primarily due to Keanu Reeves's recent box-office failures and the film's short promotion cycle. The text is more focused on setting the stage for the film's release and the challenges it faced in the broader context of the industry's performance during that period." Which is what my stance has been from the start. I understand that you are interpreting it the way you are interpreting it, but it's either a misread or some kind of misplaced pre-conceptions of the film, the article, or the text, it's not intended to or reading as an underdog tale for John Wick, in my opinion or ChatGPTs. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 19:14, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The film attracted a mostly male audience, about 77% of which were over 25 years of age." – 77% of the male audience or 77% of the overall audience?
"The film primarily drew a male audience, with approximately 77% of the viewers being aged over 25 years." resolves the ambiguity but creates the expectation that "77%" refers to the proportion of viewers who were male. Replacing "with" with "and" would solve this.TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
New comment: "performing well in Germany ($3.7 million), France ($3.2 million), Australia ($2.8 million), Taiwan ($2.6 million), Russia ($2.59 million), the United Kingdom ($2.4 million), and Japan ($2.3 million), among others." – the cited sources[23][24] do not say that all of these were good performances. In fact, they don't say that any of them were—all we get in terms of qualitative judgments is about a couple of opening grosses.TompaDompa (talk) 21:28, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Cumulatively, John Wick earned an estimated worldwide gross of $86 million" – this is a rather clunky phrasing. "Cumulatively" is rather redundant, as is the combination of "earned" and "gross". This would be way better as e.g. "Worldwide, John Wick grossed an estimated $86 million". If you really want to emphasize that the worldwide gross is the sum of the gross in the US and Canada and the gross outside of the US and Canada, you could try "In total, John Wick grossed an estimated $86 million worldwide".
"Critics were near unanimous in their praise for Reeves's performance" – that's a pretty strong statement. Do any of the sources say that critics were near unanimous?
"The home-media release was a success, being the second-best-selling home release of February behind Dracula Untold (2014), and the number-one rental during its release week." – that doesn't strike me as something I would describe as a success.
I would be much more likely to consider something that does not need such restrictive qualifiers (calendar month, specific week) to be at or near the top to be a success. This is yet another example of something that comes across as superlative-chasing. TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why is there both a "Other media" subsection here and a "Sequels and spin-offs" section further below? It would seem much more logical to me to cover all of it under a "Franchise" heading or similar.
This is for non-film content relating to John Wick, the sequels is for film content relating to John Wick. It would be awkward to be constantly flipping back and forth between mentioning video games and sequels as they are released, plus comic books, any anything else. Other media would also include merchandise if there were anything notable for it. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"According to Ann C. Hall, John Wick is a postmodern epic hero in a contemporary epic universe." – should probably link Epic (genre)orEpic poetry here.
"John Wick has been named by several publications and critics as one of the best action films ever made." – the sourcing is nowhere near strong enough for a statement like this. The first source is a top 50 list that doesn't even include the film (though it does the sequel). The second source is a top 101 that puts it at number 52. The third source is a top 36 that puts it at number 7. The fourth source is an unranked top 10. The fifth source is an (I think) unranked top 140 (and if it's meant to be read as ranked, it puts John Wick at number 16). The sixth source is a top 33 that puts it at number 32. The seventh source is an unranked list of five films that is explicitly restricted to comparatively-obscure ones (which makes me question what on Earth John Wick and Mad Max: Fury Road are doing there, but never mind). This just comes across as cherry-picking.
The first reference had been changed by Empire, they've renamed it 50 best instead of the original 60 best link I used, I've marked it as dead and the archive shows the proper rankings. I've also added a metric tonne of additional references that back this up. There are literally high thousands if not tens of thousands of action films in existence, that all these reliable sources plus the ones I've added are naming it, by your own observation, in the top 52 action films ever made is sufficient backing for the comment which does not say "John Wick IS the best action film" or "John Wick IS one of the best action films", but that several publications and critics have named it such, it's not an extraordinary claim and would only be cherry picking if it was simultaneously appearing on lists of the worst action films ever made, and even if this isn't my favourite film in the series the discourse around it is not that it is a bad action film. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that line of reasoning holds up to scrutiny. There are roughly eight billion people on Earth right now, which means that the person who is the twenty-millionth tallest is in the top 0.25%—but I wouldn't describe that person as "one of the tallest people alive today" when there are tens of millions of people who are taller.
I don't think it needs to also be dismissed as poor for this to qualify as cherry-picking, I think being absent from lists of the best action movies of all time is sufficient to raise that question. A few minutes of searching the web turned up several such lists where it's eligible but does not appear: [25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. This comes back to an issue I brought up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of books considered the best: cross-referencing "best of" lists like this is problematic. The proper way of doing it involves rigorous statistical analysis and ensuring a representative sample of sources—and goes way beyond what is allowed on Wikipedia in terms of WP:Original research. Doing that WP:ANALYSIS so improperly as to obfuscate that an analysis is done in the first place doesn't really resolve the problem. On Wikipedia, we have to accept making weaker statements than we would like to in order to not make statements that are too strong. TompaDompa (talk) 22:10, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I really just don't see the problem, are you looking at the statement in the lead or the Legacy section? The Legacy section says "John Wick has been named by several publications and critics as one of the best action films ever made." It's not making any claims that it is one of the best action films or among the best action films ever made, it states that several publications have stated it is such, including some of the ones you've linked above, though some have replaced it with John Wick 4 which came out this year whereas JW1 is nearly 10 years old and demonstrated long-term appearances on this list. By this type of logic it's not possible to call any thing ever the best if it doesn't appear on all lists ever made and that just doesn't seem reasonable. The statement is saying those publications have called it one of the best, I can change the lead but I really do not see the issue with the wording in the body text. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Here I am specifically talking about the content in the body. It is true that certain publications have called the film one of the best, and I'm not disputing that. It is also true that certain other publications could have done likewise but chose not to. We're obviously not going to state both things in the article, so what do we do? Well, ideally we look at the literature on John Wick and see what the secondary sources say (as per WP:PROPORTION). If film historians say "John Wick is generally held to be one of the best action movies of all time" (which I think they probably would say about e.g. Terminator 2 if asked), the problem is solved. It's not that the film needs to appear on every single list of this kind, it's that a completely different type of source is needed for a statement like this. The sources cited are the lists themselves—in other words, they are primary sources for this statement. Using primary sources is appropriate in some cases, but this is not one of them. WP:MEDRS, while of course dealing with a completely different area, summarizes its most important guidance as "Cite review articles, don't write them." TompaDompa (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure who is determining what sources are valid here, it's rare that any site is going to do an article specifically about a single older film unless its an anniversary/retrospective so most sources that state something like this are going to be lists, and if it was Buzzfeed or Fox News I'd let it fly, but including the refs I've added there are now 17 separate references there including Empire which is a long standing film-centric magazine, Time Out, and Rolling Stone. The statement being made is neutral and presents a fact without taking a stance or expressing an opinion. Were I to remove that content entirely what is left to state the retrospective opinion of the film? As with the line in the context section I think you're misreading it or maybe approaching it from a presumption that I'm trying to inflate it but that is not the case at all, and is the reason I haven't included opinions about where it compares to the other films in the series because there are potentially other films to come. I have moved the statement to even further deemphasize it and tried to reword it but I cannot accept that it should not be in the article at all. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 19:51, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
17 primary sources is still 0 secondary sources. I don't know how much scholarship there is on John Wick, but a quick search at e.g. Google Scholar and JSTOR shows that it is a non-zero amount. It may still be the case that no secondary sources suitable for this particular purpose exist yet, in which case we are not to pre-empt them. I'm sure you wouldn't think saying "studies have shown X" on a medical article would be appropriate if we only had the primary research to use for sourcing. "Present[ing] a fact without taking a stance or expressing an opinion" is not necessarily neutral, because the decision to mention or omit something is itself an expression of the viewpoint that the thing in question is or is not worth mentioning in that context. For example: "Oskar Schindler was a member of the Nazi Party" and "Oskar Schindler is credited with saving the lives of more than a thousand Jews during the Holocaust" are both statements of fact, and both are phrased in ways that do not inherently express any particular viewpoint, but mentioning one without mentioning the other can, depending on context, be decidedly non-neutral. I get that it's unsatisfying not to be able to say anything about how opinions on the film have evolved over time, but then, maybe (scholars think that) it's too early to tell? TompaDompa (talk) 20:19, 21 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am really confused at this point, a primary source would be the film itself, primary sources are contemporary materials, even the reviews at the time would be more considered primary sources, and these should generally be by people who were somehow involved in the event, the sources in the article are retrospective assessments, most are from 7-9 years after the film was released, they cannot be considered primary sources. Secondary sources provid analysis or evaluation and that is what the critics/publications are doing. If there were sources out there calling the film one of the worst action films ever and I was ignoring/omitting it, I'd understand, but there isn't, it didn't even get a Razzie award apart from the one for Reeves bouncing BACK to success with the film so even the place that mocks films gave it credit. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:18, 22 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
They are reliable sources giving their opinions. We don't need the NYTimes to report on the Rolling Stone's opinion for the opinion to become valid. At this point I'm happy to remove the comment from the lead altogether just to move this along, but I fundamentally disagree that we cannot include opinions about a film's reception in a section discussing its retrospective reception. By this logic the critical response section is invalid because the review is not being relayed by a secondary website, unless we're counting the aggregator. I've moved, diminished, and quantified the text to make it as innocuous as possible but I do not believe in removing the content. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 19:14, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It seems we are at an impasse and I expect we'll simply have to agree to disagree about whether this is an appropriate summary of the cited sources or an inappropriate WP:ANALYSIS of them. I'll read through the article from start to finish again and then get back to you on my overall assessment of it. It may be several days, so I ask for your patience. TompaDompa (talk) 21:30, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Several publications have named it one of the best action films of the 21st century, and among the best films in Reeves's filmography." – in combination with the preceding sentence, this comes across as superlative-chasing.
It's just segmenting them out, not superlative chasing, it would be inauthentic to use sources that say its the best action film since 2000 and claim they say best ever made. I can add additional references if you want but I don't feel it's necessary. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just to make sure we're on the same page here: you do see that this is a positive framing, right? That's as opposed to a dispassionate one—we can leave whether it is WP:NPOV-compliant aside for now (a positive framing can, at least in theory, be WP:NPOV-compliant if it accurately reflects the sources on the subject even if it is not neutral in the everyday sense of the word). TompaDompa (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will try rephrasing it, but the statements are backed up in terms of its critical response and its box office. The latter is a list of film franchises, it's not perfect because it includes every film in the MCU at the top and then lists them individually and its debatable if they fall under pure action like Die Hard or John Wick, or superhero/adventury/fantasy, but ignoring the individual listings since they're listed under the MCU, John Wick looks like its in the top 11 or 12 highest grossing action franchises there, I unfortunately can't find a listing that just includes action, but the references to this statement are not an extreme outlier. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion: that the John Wick franchise has been (critically and financially) successful is entirely uncontroversial. Where it ranks relative to other action franchises is not crucial here. Simply changing the current phrasing thusly: "[...] which in turn led to one of the mosta financially and critically successful action film series" would do the trick ("action" can be retained, but I think the sentence works better without it). TompaDompa (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"The mythology involved in the film's criminal underworld, such as a unique currency and strict rules, is also seen as contributing to the film's success." – rather redundant to "The mythology in John Wick was identified as a key aspect that differentiated it from other action movies, particularly the codes and rules that govern the criminals" in a previous section.
I've trimmed it down to just mythology, the first is the contemporary reception, the second is the enduring part of its reception
"Like how John Wick was influenced by the history of action cinema, it is seen as an influence on many action films that followed, such as Atomic Blonde (2017), Guns Akimbo (2019), and Extraction (2020); and 2021 films Gunpowder Milkshake, Jolt, The Protégé, and Nobody—which was also written by Kolstad and produced by Leitch." – bordering on run-on sentence. It also relies on "was" as opposed to "were" to clarify that only Nobody was by Kolstad and Leitch, which is suboptimal.
"MovieWeb wrote John's in-narrative status as a legendary character before the film begins was a "genius" decision that adds depth to the character and the film's universe while keeping him sympathetic through the loss of his wife and puppy." – this is a garden-path sentence due to the lack of "that" after "wrote" (did "MovieWeb [write] John's in-narrative status as a legendary character"?). Also, the stuff before "while" is one point and the stuff after it a separate one, but it's phrased as if the latter is part of the former—the in-narrative status as a legendary character does not keep him sympathetic.
"John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019), which nearly quadrupled the box-office take of John Wick and became one of the highest-grossing films of 2019." – it was number 14 in the US and Canada[32][33] and number 27 worldwide[34][35].
I don't know that an exact cut-off can be pre-specified, but I certainly wouldn't describe number 14 or number 27 as one of the highest-grossing.TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like OR to me, if the source calls it one of the year's highest-grossing films why are we inveting goalposts for it? There is also this source from Forbes which similarly points out its a success. I can reword it to "one of the year's most financially successful films" or something but in terms of sequel on sequel success, profitability, and being even the 27th highest grossing film in a year filled with comic book movies and big budget sequels, I don't think its success is unsupported. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 18:11, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can't recall who it was that said this first, but: we're editors, not parrots. We don't have to repeat what the sources say uncritically if it's dubious—we can use our judgment to identify when sources make errors, exaggerate, or use emotionally charged language that is inappropriate for Wikipedia, among other things.TompaDompa (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I'm going to have to oppose at this point. This is based on overall prose quality, neutrality (both in terms of the general tone and specific issues such as the ones I have outlined above), and the sourcing issues I discovered when double-checking a few things that seemed questionable to me. That last point in particular gives me pause, because I did not conduct anything approaching a thorough spot-check, so the fact that I found what I consider to be serious sourcing problems suggests to me there are likely more such problems that are as-yet undiscovered. TompaDompa (talk) 20:47, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure it's normal to let me address your comments before throwing an oppose in there. Seems unnecessary. As per the last point giving you so much concern, it's sourced, what can I say. I will need time to deal with the rest. Also I only use reliable sources, I have thrown away good references containing information I needed because the source wasn't reliable, the sources are not questionable and your concerns about Screen Rant have been addressed in my previous FAC reviews. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 21:12, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note that it's common for reviewers to oppose straight off, if they consider the issues serious enough. Opposes can always be struck, or even turn into support, as the issues get resolved. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:29, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I thought a fair amount about whether to outright oppose or not. On the one hand, I would certainly be happy to change to support if the article is improved such that I feel comfortable doing so (hence my "at this point"). On the other, I wanted to be upfront about this not being a case where "it's close, fix a few issues and I'll support" and make sure to, well, manage expectations I suppose. I would hate for us to get stuck in a WP:FIXLOOP. TompaDompa (talk) 21:30, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will, of course, give this a second look. Due to circumstances outside of Wikipedia, it will likely be an additional few days before I have the time do it justice. TompaDompa (talk) 14:08, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have started. I have added strikethrough markup to resolved issues, responded to some of your replies, added a couple of new comments, and left a fair number issues I will need to take a closer look at later without further action. TompaDompa (talk) 21:05, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I quite understand the question, but: I intend to take a new look at the entire article from start to finish once my comments above have all either been resolved or reached an impasse, seeing as the article will be in quite a different state then than when I first evaluated it, and I may or may not spot additional issues when I do so. I am aware that this is taking quite a while, and I apologize—I underestimated how much time reviewing this nomination would take and overestimated how much time I would be able to devote to it. Rest assured that I am not going to abandon it altogether. I want to get it right, and I think accomplishing that after a delay is preferable to getting it wrong but being done sooner. TompaDompa (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No need to apologise; you are doing a very thorough review and much improving the article. Wikipedia isn't going anywhere, so by all means let us do this right. Pinging Darkwarriorblake to ensure they are aware that the ball is in their court. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:24, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've read the article again and added a few new comments. I'm going to have to think about my overall assessment a bit more, so feel free to address these comments in the meantime. TompaDompa (talk) 23:30, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Having now thought about it for some time, I'm sorry to say that I cannot in good conscience withdraw my oppose here. I have been able to spot a fairly large number of (often individually comparatively subtle) editorial choices (some but not all listed above) that in aggregate result in an article that is to my eye pretty far from neutral. The article does not report the facts dispassionately—it crafts a narrative that is complimentary to the film. I want to be clear that I don't believe this to be intentional on the nominator's part—I expect that all of these choices were made in good faith and for all I know they could be by other editors altogether—but it permeates the article nonetheless. I don't think FAC is the right venue to address a problem this widespread, even if the article has undeniably improved significantly in this regard during the course of the nomination (if I came across the article for the first time today, I might not notice that anything is amiss—but being aware of it, it's still there).
I'm not being difficult for the sake of it, I genuinely think this is important. I don't think the prose quality (conciseness, use of quotes, wording, and so on) is quite up to WP:Featured article standards, but I also don't think those deficits are so serious that my objections on those grounds alone should hold up the nomination if all other reviewers agree that it's fine (especially considering how much it has improved during the course of the nomination). On the other hand, I do think the pervasive (though mostly fairly subtle) sourcing and neutrality issues are serious enough that the article shouldn't be promoted in its current state. I'm sorry. TompaDompa (talk) 14:16, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The article has some problems with reference ordering (i.e. "Test audiences were supportive of John avenging his puppy.[139][71][30]") but that's not an issue to. Happy to offer my support to speed things up. – zmbro(talk) (cont)18:16, 16 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I'm aware there's 4 supports, a weak support and an oppose after substantial changes were done anyway and it's had its source and image reviews. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:56, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Having done a fair bit of copy-editing (please check to see if I messed something up or accidentally changed the meaning of something), I think it's appropriate to recuse myself. However, I'd like to share my opinion: TompaDompa has raised valid points and the nominator has actively engaged with their comments, addressing their concerns where possible. If I'm understanding this correctly, it appears that Tompa's oppose is mainly because of neutrality issues, e.g. the citation of publications listing the film among the best. On this point, I respectfully disagree. It's standard practice to attribute such statements to individual publications, especially when reputable sources like Empire, Time Out, and Rolling Stone frequently publish such lists. While the ideal scenario might involve a source explicitly stating something like "Various publications named it one of the best films", the presence of over a dozen individual sources should be deemed more than acceptable in this context. FrB.TG (talk) 17:00, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have been away for a few days, so I may not have been paying as much attention as usual. I did receive this one. {{@FAC}} is a better way of communicating with the coordinators as a group. As it is a coordinator has recused and opined on the nomination: possibly a sign that notice has been taken, discussions had, and that the nomination is moving forward. I imagine that one of @FAC coordinators: will be along in due course to render a final judgement. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:04, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If it were the case that you had another article which you were burning to nominate for FA, a request here to open its FAC early is likely to be sympathetically received. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:20, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Woah woah, archived or promoted? I've got the reviews and support to promote David Fuchs, I've been waiting for 3 months for an admin to get to this! There are four supports, a weak support and one oppose and per FrB.TG's comments that user's review was in depth and I hit everything they asked for bar like 2 things and their opposition wasn't necessarily realistic. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:21, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The Old Man and the Sea was the last major work written and published by Ernest Hemingway while he was still alive. A staple of English classrooms ever since, the book has often been passed over by academics keen to explore earlier, seemingly more complex works. In my rather uneducated opinion though, it's the best thing he ever wrote.
This article was originally promoted to Featured Article status in 2005, before being downgraded two years later (no, I don't know what's up with the links up there either). It is my first nomination of a literary work, and if successful and on time (rather unlikely at this point) it'll be used in the WikiCup. I'm aware that the critical analysis section could probably be expanded, but am reluctant to do so for reasons of WP:WEIGHT and WP:TECHNICAL (seriously, some stuff just breaks brains, and I don't want to put hundreds of thousands of children off reading forever); if you disagree, let me know. I hope you enjoy. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:04, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
File:Ernest_Hemingway_at_the_Finca_Vigia,_Cuba_1946_-_NARA_-_192660.jpg: why is this believed to be the work of a government employee? Ditto File:Ernest_Hemingway_Aboard_the_Pilar_1935_-_NARA_-_192674.jpg
I've had a first look at the article with an initial round of comments. The nomination looks promising and my points so far are minor. Phlsph7 (talk) 14:37, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hemingway began to write as an addendum a story about an old man and a marlin which had originally been told to him fifteen years earlier. replace "which" with "that"
Done.
The last major fictional work to be published during Hemingway's lifetime, The Old Man and the Sea was begun in Cuba during a tumultuous period in the author's life—his previous novel Across the River and Into the Trees had met with negative reviews, and he had fallen in love with his muse Adriana Ivancich, amid a breakdown in relations with his wife Mary. This is a lot of information condensed into a single sentence. I would suggest splitting it up.
Done.
n May 1952, Life magazine agreed to publish the whole magazine in one issue should this be "the whole text" or "the whole book"?
Ceoil seems to have fixed this error already, so thanks to them.
The parents of Manolin, whom Santiago had trained, have forced their son to work on a different, luckier boat This sounds like Santiago had trained the parents rather than Manolin.
Fixed I think; let me know if still unclear.
Hemingway became increasingly certain he wished to publish it on its own brief merits, should the term "brief" be removed?
Done.
Hemingway wished to reject the idea the idea he should only write the expression "the idea" is repeated. Is the "wished to" necessary or could we just say "Hemingway rejected the idea"?
Removed the duplication; I prefer the "wished to" as he explictly expresses it as a desire.
As he wrote to Meyer, Hemingway wished to reject the idea the idea he should only write War and Peace or Crime and Punishment-like novels. He rejected his publisher Scribner's initial cover designs, and asked Ivancich to draw a set of sketches which he found much more suitable. both sentences use the term "reject". Maybe one could be replaced for the sake of variety.
Done.
He rejected his publisher Scribner's initial cover designs,... the possessive "his" together with the possessive "Scribner's" sounds strange to my ears. How about "He rejected the initial cover designs from his publisher, Scribner,...".
Reorganised sentence; Scribner's is the publisher name, so I've used the full title to try to alleviate confusion.
placing the novella as superior in quality to Across the River and equal to Hemingway's earliest work. To my ears, the phrase "earliest work" sounds like it is referring to one particular work. Would "earlier works" be better?
Changed to "earliest works"—they are typically referring to his very early output, which is most highly regarded.
The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction on May 4, 1952 I assume this should be "1953"
The Old Man and the Sea is considered inferior to Hemingway's earlier works. is such a general statement justified? It's questionable at least for the early reception.
The statement was altered by Victoriaearle; I have changed it back to the earlier version.
An oft-cited passage occurs when might be better to use "often-cited", which is more common
Done.
The whole section "Critical analysis" relies a lot on quotations to make its main points. I think having more paraphrases here would be better, see WP:OQ.
I have paraphrased a couple; I think that since most are the subject of commentary or explanation through non-quotation text, I prefer to keep them. If you have any specific examples, I will try to oblige. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:29, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Looks better now but I still have the impression that it relies too much on quotations. I don't work a lot on articles involving literary criticism so feel free to push back if the quotation-heavy style is common for this type of article. Otherwise, I would suggest some changes to the following passages/paragraphs.
Dismissing Carlos Baker's praise of the struggle as "gallantry against gallantry", instead preferring "fakery against fakery: a make-believe super-fish duelling a make-believe super-fisherman", Weeks concludes that The Old Man and the Sea is "an inferior Hemingway novel."
This passage was characterised by Sylvester, Grimes, and Hays as "a clear reference to a crucifixion", taking place, like Christ's death, at three o'clock on a Friday afternoon; it thus "caps the numerous references to Christ’s Passion throughout the book, and Santiago’s parallel suffering".[49] Brenner finds these and other allusions deeply problematic, and comments that the "facile linking of Santiago's name with Christ's" offended those "with knowledge and respect for the New Testament's accounts".[50] Dismissing both Brenner's conclusion and any approach which defines Santiago as a Christ-figure, Stoneback argues that a "simplistic, ill-informed approach to literary texts" leads to misunderstandings on this point; he declared that the "Santiago figure" of The Old Man and the Sea was "a candidate for veneration ... as the ultimate embodiment of Hemingway's values and vision".[51]
Brenner's 1991 critique characterises Santiago as a supremely flawed individual: unintelligent, arrogant, paternalist, anti-environmentalist and on "a self-glorifying power trip". He criticises the fisherman's inability "to think his way out of a cash consciousness", being fixated on "an obsession with greatness" as he "plunders a valuable sanctuary".[52] He further noted that Santiago, portrayed as blatantly sexist and hostile towards all things female, was in fact "feminized" by "his latent homosexual desire for Manolin", who was himself alternately traumatised and manipulated by Santiago's aggression and duplicity.[53] Brenner's analysis has been strongly criticised: Stoneback terms it a "jejune litany of ... shock-schlock critical fast-food [and] tired old questions", while Sylvester, Grimes, and Hays notes that "much of the book reeks of rabid exaggeration and misreading".[54]
WP:EARWIG shows one potential copyright violation ([37]), which is a simple copy-paste from our article.
I didn't spot any unreliable sources
Should there be something about the potential influence from and parallels to Moby Dick? I remember reading something in this regard but I don't if that information was reliable and important.
I don't think there was much in RS about it—the article mentions it in the reception section as a comparison point, but I think that's about it.
Do we need the template for Billfish on the bottom or is having a wikilink to marlin sufficient?
Removed.
Baker 1962a lacks an identifier, like OCLC
Done.
the ISBN of Baker 1969 is for the 1988 edition, maybe use an OCLC since 1969 might be too early for ISBNs
Changed the dates around, as my copy is the 1988 version, it appears.
Brenner 1991 lacks ISBN
Added
Macdonald 1960 missing identifier, like DOI or ISSN
I don't think the magazine he wrote in, the Partisan Review, would have received such identifiers; I might be wrong, however.
Thanks very much for your comments, Phlsph7. Apologies for the delay in answering—my internet was unexpectedly faulty, and I've not been able to do anything in detail. Let me know if any issues remain unresolved. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:29, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The changes look fine so far. Two more points about the subsection "Themes":
I would put the religious interpretations next to each other. They are currently divided by the theme about not being defeated. Is the theme about not being defeated identified as a classical theme in the reliable sources?
Should this subsection have more information on themes like life cycles (the contrast of youth and old age), man against nature, and the fixation on high achievement?
his previous novel Across the River and Into the Trees had met with negative reviews, and he had fallen in love with his muse Adriana Ivancich, amid a breakdown in relations with his wife Mary. - because a comma is first used to separate two ideas, using the comma before "amid" is confusing; "and he had fallen in love with his muse Adriana Ivancich, amid a breakdown in relations with his wife Mary" is one idea, but the previous comma was used to separate ideas; I think it's best without this second comma
I've split the sentence on the recommendation of Phlsph7 above; what do you think?
Every sentence in para two of the lead and the first three sentences of lead para three all start with dependent clauses. This is extremely nitpicky, but it becomes old after a while; throw some independent clauses in there for variety
I think this has been nullified somewhat—does anything stand out to you?
Over the next year, Hemingway was increasingly convinced that the manuscript would stand on its own as a novella. In May 1952, Life magazine agreed to publish the whole magazine in one issue, which it did on 1 September; Hemingway's publishers Scribner's released their first edition a week later on the 8th. - not sure if I'm missing something, but how is Life related to this book? The novella is not mentioned
Fixed by someone who noticed the same issue.
Early reviews were positive, with many hailing a return to form for Hemingway after Across the River's negative reception. The applause lessened over time - I have never heard praise referred to as applause, unless Hemmingway was literally at some venue
Delighted to see this brought back. My feeling is that its close but needs some polish, and I see discussion re adding more up-to-date sources is ongoing on article talk. Still reading through, so placeholder. Have been making light ces, mostly around tense. Ceoil (talk) 15:36, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The two sentence lead paragraph seems unsatisfying. Given short attention spans these days (grumble grumble) would at least merge with the 2nd lead para, or better expand with more synopsis and a hint at lasting importance.
I agree, and have had a go; not entirely satisfied, so what do you think?
The Old Man and the Sea was Ernest Hemingway's sixth novel, following The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), To Have and Have Not (1937), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and Across the River and Into the Trees (1950).[1] - could we just not say that he was already well established and it was this 6th novel (so not so listy).
I prefer the "list" for two reasons: it allows the article to refer back to previous works (as in the reception section, for example); and it also provides one sentence of a wider perspective—of the novella's placing in the breadth of Hemingway's life.
hailing a return to form for Hemingway after Across the River's negative reception - dont like "hailing a return" very much, and "Across the River's" negative reception is a bit of a cop out...was it a dip in quality or just not appreciated at the time.
What about the hailing phrase don't you like? I've added a "what they saw as" if your issue was with the in-wikivoice tone. On Across the River—that's still under discussion.
lead: "rephrase "Having completed one book of a planned "sea trilogy", Hemingway began to write as an addendum a story about an old man and a marlin that had originally been told to him fifteen years earlier." as something like "Having completed one book of a planned "sea trilogy", Hemingway began an addendum about an old man and a marlin told from a story told to him fifteen years earlier". Ceoil (talk) 22:31, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi AirshipJungleman29, I don't know if you saw the comments I left on the talk, but I'll link them here to keep it all together. Sorry about mentioning Stoneback in those comments; it's good to see it's in the article. A couple more comments for now, and apoligies in advance that I may not be able to get back to this:
For the biographical info, the most recent and best is Michael Reynolds four volume bio. Part 4, Hemingway: The Final Years covers this period. The Old Man material is on pp.249-263 in the volume I have sitting on my lap. Try to find it. If you can't get access, Linda-Wagner Martin is also good. I have this volume in digital format and would be happy to send it on. Meyers is good & okay to use. James R. Mellow is also good; his Life without Consequences might be available on archives.org. There are issues with Baker, aside from being dated. He wrote the bio before EH died, Mary contributed and approved, so it's not completely objective. That said, I do like his critical analyses, but again, because they're dated - though I think they're generally really good - they need to be used sparingly.
There should be a writing style section. Because, well, Hemingway.
Thanks Victoria; sorry, my internet's been patchy this past week and I haven't had the time to address ... anything, really. I can get on with substituting Reynolds and others for Baker, and with addressing the comprehensiveness aspect. I can't remember much analysis of the writing style that doesn't directly connect it to questions of quality (the couple of lines in the quality section); anything specific you have in mind? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:44, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it's Hemingway, and the Nobel Prize, so it's really all about style. I forgot to check Jstor and there are thousands of entries there! For criticism I think generally Johnston is good so try this, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2923916. To do with style, I'm only seeing older entries but this https://www.jstor.org/stable/42945039 is a good start. A Hemingway/Old Man & the Sea/Style search returns 5000+ entries, fwiw. I would expect Wagner-Martin to cover it and I'll check my Cambridge Companion. Anyway, I'll leave this now, but again, it's Hemingway, a story about a man in a boat, a Nobel prize, so, well, style. Victoria (tk) 18:51, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I didn't mean to be flippant. Old Man and "Big Two-Hearted River" are where he used Iceberg theory to the n-th degree. The latter is a crap article, but the sources I used there will give you a good start; Big Two-Hearted River is FA & some of those sources will probably also apply to Old Man plus some of the style section might be usable so feel free to copy to Old Man. That should give you a start. Victoria (tk) 19:04, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies Gog the Mild, there were issues accessing a couple of sources. I'm getting back up to speed with the article (not my usual specialisation) and should be able to respond in detail by Wednesday, if that's okay? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:11, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's fine, so long as all outstanding comments are addressed by the end of the week. I was thinking of reviewing it myself, but didn't want to put the work in if there was some ongoing reason for your absence. Ping me once the current reviews are sorted or on their way there and I'll see if I can fit it in. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:22, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Wednesday has gone and so has the end of the week. I appreciate that real life always takes priority, but this is probably past the point where it would be best to archive it and re-nominate when you have the time available to do justice to it. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:50, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
