Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/George Orwell bibliography/archive2

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Dabomb87 21:58, 14 September 2010 [1].

George Orwell bibliography[edit]

George Orwell bibliography (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list because I put a lot of work into it, it appears comprehensive, and I have addressed all of the misgivings from the first FLC nomination (which I did not make.) I am the main contributor to this article and will work with anyone who offers feedback on improving it. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:50, 9 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. No dead references or dab links, which is a plus. In the Collected editions section, The Sunday Times and Private Eye should be italicized per WP:MOSTITLE. - JuneGloom07 Talk? 21:17, 11 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done I anticipate smaller housekeeping issues like this, which I intend to fix on an as-needed basis. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 10:55, 26 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments - mammoth list, so forgive me but this will be a heavily-stilted review.
  • Lead, for a list of this magnitude, should be four magnificent paragraphs, summarising what I'm about to see in the following sections.
Working on it I have had a lot of WP:LEAD problems before; I guess I'll give this another go. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Essays is a section but not in the infobox.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • You could use a key so people know what EL and CEJL I means, plus you italicise them sometimes and other times you don't, so be consistent.
Done The Legend for collected editions includes "EL" and "CEJL". Looking through the list, I don't see any instances that aren't emphasized, but I suppose it's not impossible... —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man (talk) 20:31, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Would these have ISBNs?
What? I don't understand. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See ISBN. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:48, 15 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Right But would what have ISBNs? Articles? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:29, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Books, I'd assume. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ISBN's were invented in 1966, and Orwell died in 1950, and as each edition gets a new ISBN, they're unlikely to be of any use. (Though any books used as sources should still have them, of course.) Courcelles 10:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done I simply deleted them. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:40, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Dan Dassow (talk) 22:18, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comments - Since this list is so large and comprehensive, I may have additional comments after a further review.
Done? It was published in the print edition of The Economist from that same date. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Infobox
    • The number of releases add up to 648 not 642.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Infobox list does not line up with the subsection outline of the article. This makes it difficult to verify the number of items in the Infobox.
Not done I'm not sure how to fix this, as not every entry warrants its own heading. I suppose the best way to confirm the numbers is to check the table; all of that is sourced. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redlinks - There are number of red links in the article. Many of these are to people and publications that may not be notable and are unlikely to have articles written about them.
Done Any redlinks that are left have at least two other links on Wikipedia (sometimes several more.) —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The table in the section Full list of publications accounts for more than 80 percent of the article. Please consider hiding the table as a default.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

--Dan Dassow (talk) 16:28, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Strongly Support - Problems resolved to my satisfaction. --Dan Dassow (talk) 22:18, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I'm unsure about the collapsing (e.g. doesn't show on my phone, which is a strong argument against), but magnificent work! Pick of the week! (if it can beat Joan Gamper Trophy, uhh now that's a tough call) Sandman888 (talk) Latest PR 22:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I suggested hiding the table in the section Full list of publications since it dominates the article. I had not considered display issues for non-PC platforms. I will retain my support regardless of whether the table is initially hidden. --Dan Dassow (talk) 23:21, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As Sandman pointed out, collapsing tables in the body of an article causes WP:ACCESS problems, so I would recommend that the table is uncollapsed by default. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done For what it's worth, I simply prefer them personally and especially so if they are a hassle for browsers with JavaScript/ECMAScript implementation problems. Thanks everyone! —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am commenting as an editor of Orwell articles rather than an FLC regular, having been alerted to this review by a message at Talk:George Orwell. This bibliography has an admirably ambitious scope (one of the best I have seen), but the prose quality lets it down in many places. The lead section is an inadequate and oddly-sequenced summary of the author's writings, much of the commentary goes without any verification, there is inconsistent level of detailing (I've left {{specify}} and {{clarify}} tags to illustrate some instances of this), padded prose (I've removed some of the more egregious uses of "several" though eleven remain at the time of writing). There is no introduction to the "Collected editions" section, unlike the others. Beyond the prose, the references section is incomplete and inconsistent, mixing citation styles, level of detail and date formats (are either of YYYY-MM-DD and unpunctuated day/month/year really conventional British English as the editnotice claims?). The final section contains a solitary link – surely for such a popular author we can give the reader more to go on? I realise that my comments are general, but there is so much work to be done here to reach featured quality I'm not convinced it would be best to continue with this exercise without the help of editors adept at prose writing/knowledgable enough of Orwell to succinctly introduce him and point the reader to relevant high quality external links/able to sort out the references. I apologise if my tone is strident; the writing is engaging and near-comprehensive, and much better in this regard than any list I have written (including the featured ones) and I congratulate the authors. Best, Skomorokh 03:08, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Partially done I have addressed all of your concerns for the tags, minus one {{clarify}} that seemed pretty straight-forward to me. For that matter, the dates in the references have been amended by a script. I will continue to work on the text itself--clearly my weakest suit--tomorrow. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:14, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
More I have amended the text to have a more logical flow and added another external link. It seems like the biggest problems are incosistent referencing (easily fixed by the use of {{Citation}} and related templates) and the lead--my perennial weakness. I think I can work out these problems tomorrow. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:35, 23 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And more I have made consistent references using citation templates and will now take another crack at the lead. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:47, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done? I've amended the lead once again to have a more logical flow from paragraph to paragraph as well as give a better overview of his body of work and the collections published since his death. Please let me know if this seems sufficient to you. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:58, 24 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Extended comments to follow. Skomorokh 20:12, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lead
This section is a lot less perfunctory and scattered than when the list was first nominated, covers most bases – good job. I have a few comments, mostly cosmetic, to push this towards the professional standard demanded by the FLC:
MOS:BOLDTITLE; you need not boldface the title of the article, as it is a description of the subject rather than a proper name. Some editors have an aesthetic preference for boldfacing, but in this article it appears odd to link George Orwell at the second mention rather than the first.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If the list is comprehensive, you ought to be able to say what media the bibliography definitively encompasses, rather than "includes". If you're not certain of course, that's fine.
Not done It's not necessary to mention that he wrote a single play or recipes in the lead; the bulk of his work is mentioned by genre or type. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Orwell was a prolific writer and" – this is a little sparse as an introduction to what sort of writer Orwell was, especially considering that the rest of the sentence does not elaborate on his being prolific. Consider moving some of the more descriptive material here.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Any particular reason for choosing The Economist as the publication to quote for an assessment of Orwell?
Response The Economist is a respected British publication which writes about political concerns, so it seems acutely relevant. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"As he explained in the essay..." This sentence doesn't seem to relate to the previous one (which dwelt on his being prolific and a chronicler of English culture) – it tells us the political focus of his work. It's a bit outlandish to imply one can chronicle English culture purely through political analysis – odd structure.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Now there's a paragraph break, where fiction is elaborated upon. Fine, but it's mixed in with chronology, and then the next paragraph starts by telling us what he primarily wrote – non-fiction. This all seems a little garbled. Some alternative approaches would be to go purely chronological ("first he wrote this, then that" and so on), or in descending order of importance ("Orwell's most significant works were...he also wrote..."). Either way you go, the most important points (wrote mostly nonfic, famous for novels, notable for political analyses) should all be summarised in a line in the opening paragraph.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"op-ed" is neologistic considering we are discussing an early 20th century writer – I doubt these were termed "op-eds" when Orwell wrote them.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There are issues with run-on lines and grammar/punctuationin two places – the sentence starting "While fiction" (uses a comma, emdash and semicolon), and the one beginning "Only two compilations". You might consider breaking these up into simpler constructions – particularly in a list article, the reader ougt not expect to have to trip over too many dependent clauses and convoluted pacing.
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The choice of collections to finish the section is a good one, but the last line leaves the reader a little cold. It might be better to "wrap it up" more satisfactorily; for instance by addressing the legacy of Orwell's writing. Skomorokh 22:54, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done I think that the current ending is much better than the abrupt one I had before and while imperfect, is more like what you're suggesting. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Books and novels
"Orwell composed six novels" – is it that he only composed six or only had six published? If it is known, it would be best to clarify (strictly speaking, bibliography only covers published works, so the reader might wonder why you mention composition).
Response As mentioned in the "Other works section, he composed two unpublished novels in French. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to suggest you include years of publication after the linked novels for context, but then notice the full publication details are printed right after. Perhaps it is redundant to name and link the novels twice in such a short section?
Response It's a bit of a rock-and-a-hard place: you want to link the first instance, but it also makes sense to link lists as they stand apart from prose. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not done See WP:REPEATLINK and below. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:59, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As we are discussing only nine books, stating that several were semi-autobiographical strikes as lazy; the secondary literature ought to make clear the autobiographical extent of the books.
Response I'm not sure that I understand the problem here... —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, the prose in this section is admirably concise and to the point while covering all the important details, nice work.

Skomorokh 23:08, 1 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Goodraise 17:19, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
;Comments
Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Published French in Progrès Civique" - Isn't there an in missing between Published and French?

Goodraise 10:37, 3 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:44, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Not done. Goodraise 01:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done Apparently, there were multiple instances of this. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:19, 12 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and literary criticism whom British newsweekly" - Personally, I'd place a comma after criticism to aid the reader. I won't insist on it though.
  • I share Skomorokh's concern about the immense weight you are giving to the opinion of The Economist. After all, however respected, it is only one publication.
  • "The majority of his work constitutes this non-fiction cultural and political criticism" - Isn't it the other way round: "This non-fiction cultural and political criticism constitutes the majority of his work"?
  • "Orwell is is best"
  • "Orwell primarily wrote non-fiction" - Do you have to point that out in every paragraph?
  • "has been responsible for cotinued scholarly analyses" - You mean continued, right?

Goodraise 08:54, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done all —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:33, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I share Skomorokh's concern about the immense weight you are giving to the opinion of The Economist. After all, however respected, it is only one publication.

Goodraise 08:54, 4 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'll have to remain neutral on this nomination, as I didn't find the time to give this fairly large article a complete review. Goodraise

Support. For a subject as weighty and with such a reputation for precision as this, it would be tempting to go on nit-picking, revising, and rethinking in pursuit of the perfect summation. It has certainly come on a great deal since this nomination. That said, the list's quality I think surpasses the modest requirements of the featured list criteria, and the encyclopaedia would be well-served to have it stand as an exemplar for the rest of its bibliographies. Skomorokh 23:14, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:34, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support While I don't think the FLC standards are "modest", I do agree this meets them. Courcelles 23:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - well-written, interesting and meets the FLC criteria.--BelovedFreak 18:31, 13 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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