Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Other Worlds, Universe Science Fiction, and Science Stories/archive1

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

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 23:40, 10 March 2017 [1].

Other Worlds, Universe Science Fiction, and Science Stories[edit]

Nominator(s): Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:12, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Raymond Palmer, who edited the three magazines that are the subject of this article, was one of the more colourful characters in the science fiction world; he was a dwarf, crippled and for periods partly paralyzed, but he still managed to hold down a central position in science fiction magazine publishing for two decades, albeit with some flim-flammery to help. He eventually gave up and switched to flying saucers as the topic of the one surviving magazine, and unfortunately there are almost no sources on the last two decades of that title. The years when the magazines contained science fiction stories are quite well covered though, so that's the focus here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:12, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Support from Comments by RL0919[edit]

This looks pretty good overall, especially considering the complex publication history, so I only have a few questions/concerns:

  • I assume the mysterious "Chicago businessman" who partnered with Palmer is not named in any source?
    Unfortunately not; he's just "the anonymous businessman". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The business partner lost interest in the project almost immediately, and Palmer sold his half share in Clark Publications, which had published Other Worlds and Fate, and established Palmer Publications, taking over both the new magazines with Universe's third issue and Science Stories' second issue and giving up the editorial pseudonym." In the entire convoluted history of these magazines, this was the sentence that threw me. At first I thought it mistakenly said "sold" when it should have said "bought". It took a moment to realize that Clark Publications was not the publisher of Other Worlds -- that was Bell Publications -- and the sentence was not about Palmer buying out his partner. Actually, the disposition of Bell Publications seems to be unmentioned. That's before even getting to the second half of the sentence. I'm thinking this should be broken up so the reader can be stepped through it a little more slowly.
    I've attempted to clarify this-- how does that look? It might still be a bit too quick. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "For a variety of reasons ..." quote from Palmer starts with two sets of quote marks -- just a typo, or something else?
    A typo; removed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:REDNOT discourages redlinks to people's names; there are several such links in the article.
    Removed. I'm not fond of REDNOT; I understand the reasoning, but it's a pity, because redlinks are valuable. Still, it's a sensible guideline, so the redlinks are gone. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I need to ask about the use of the Internet Speculative Fiction Database as a source, since it appears to be an open wiki. I see you asked about it twice at WP:RSN with no responses. I also see that it is used in the Weird Tales article, which passed FA this past October, but it seems no one even asked about it in the PR or FAC. If there isn't some other place where the reliability of this source was discussed, I think we should at least talk about it.
    It's not entirely an open wiki, as there is a sort of editorial review function, but I think the strongest argument I can make is to quote the online Science Fiction Encyclopedia, which is an authoritative reference in the field. They mention the ISFDB in two articles: Bibliographies and Online SF Resources. The bibliographies article in particular says that the ISFDB has superseded Reginald (a standard bibliography in the field); it does give caveats about pre-World War II publications, but that doesn't apply here. The other article calls it "incomparable"! Can I claim that "incomparable" implies "reliable"? Incidentally, I don't know if this counts as a COI, but I used to edit at the ISFDB, and still occasionally add data -- I was an admin over there for a while but lost the admin bit many years ago for inactivity. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's it for now; it was an interesting read and seems close to the mark for FA already. --RL0919 (talk) 22:58, 26 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. I just acquired a biography of Palmer, by the way, and I may be able to add one or two sentences about the flying saucer phase of the magazine from that, though it doesn't look detailed -- that's just FYI in case you want to look again after I've looked through it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm good with all the recent edits; in particular the part about the change of publishing companies seems more clear now. Regarding ISFDB, if they have editorial review and a positive reputation with reliable sources, then I'm good with accepting them for the type of information they are cited for here. (It's not like there are controversial BLP claims at stake.) As for any possible COI, unless you added the data you are citing, I don't see a concern. If you add a significant amount of material from your new sources, I'll take another look, but I would support for FA based on the current prose. --RL0919 (talk) 04:17, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the review and support. The new material is here, if you want to take a look. Re the ISFDB, since you mention the editorial review I should clarify a bit, because it's not what editorial review usually means. The site used to be a plain wiki that anyone could edit. About 15 years ago the site owner changed it so that a moderation system was required to approve edits, and he made the most trusted users on the site moderators. The moderators can in turn approve other users as moderators. It's the same as if edits here had to be approved by admins; this is not central editorial review, but it does mean that plain vandalism never becomes visible. I think this system is not quite enough on its own to make the site reliable; I would rely instead on the fact that the SF Encyclopedia treats it as reliable. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:03, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I made one small copy edit to the addition, but otherwise it seems good, so no change in my support. --RL0919 (talk) 05:22, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment[edit]

Overall very good, although the phrasing is labored at times. I don't like "did his best", etc. Could do with less words. Still reading through, actionable points to follow. Ceoil (talk) 02:09, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Have had a look at the sources; they are reliable and authoritative. All are offline, so cant do further spot-checks, but this is a long trusted editor, so fine. Ceoil (talk) 12:17, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Done reading through, issues hinted above resolved. Ceoil (talk) 14:36, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ceoil: I appreciate the copyediting; I've undone a couple of minor changes as explained below; let me know if you think any of these need further tweaking.
  • "Palmer was unable to fill the magazine with material of this quality" -> "Palmer was unable to provide material of this quality": changed to "obtain enough material of this quality to fill the magazine"; the intended point is that he was able to get some good material, but not as much as he needed, so the remaining space in the magazine had to be filled with inferior stories. Also changed "provide" to "obtain" since he was dependent on authors to submit material, and couldn't directly provide stories.
  • "he would print both news of flying saucers and also rumors" -> "he would print news of flying saucers and rumors": changed to "he would print both news and rumors of flying saucers"; my wording was clumsy but I think "both" is needed to make it clear what the rumors were about.
Thanks for the review and support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:34, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. Ceoil (talk) 19:01, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from JC[edit]

  • though he was only partially successful. - This is a little too vague for me. Maybe "though early issues included mostly conventional stories" or something like that.
    I thought about this for a bit and have decided to just cut the phrase from the lead; making it more specific would require some qualifications and I think it would unbalance that paragraph. The shortened sentence is still accurate, and the second paragraph gives details of some stories he did publish, so I think we get some context. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe link going concern?
    When I looked at the going concern article I realized it implied there were no financial threats, which was definitely not the case for Other Worlds at that time. All I meant was that Other Worlds was still being published. I reworded it to avoid using the phrase. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • and both had higher budgets than Palmer was able to afford, and Other Worlds suffered as a result. - I would change the second "and" to "so" to reduce the repetition.
    Reworded; I went with a slightly different approach -- how does that look? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor style thing, but consecutive references should be in numerical order ([21][2][22] → [2][21][22] for instance)
    I think I got all of them. FYI, there was a recent discussion, and as far as I can tell there's no style requirement anywhere to do this, but in my case I almost never care about the order of the footnotes, and I agree they look odd if not in order. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd mention that the Chicago businessman was anonymous in one of his first mentions, if possible.
    Good idea; done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • switch the magazines focus - Missing an apostrophe
    Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you think it would be feasible and useful to create a graphical timeline showing when each magazine was being published and under which name? I know that probably isn't customary, but given that the article concerns multiple interconnected titles, and that I did get lost a couple times, I think it might be helpful. Just a thought in passing.
    I was hoping the existing tables would provide what you're asking for -- the overlap between the various runs makes it hard to put them all in a single table. Do you have a specific representation in mind that you think would work? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    What I had in mind was something like this that could adapted to show each publication period and title change. Like I said, just a thought... feel free to disregard. – Juliancolton | Talk 16:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Overall it looks very nice, and I'll be happy to support pending Ceoil's prose review. – Juliancolton | Talk 23:46, 2 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:06, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Juliancolton - have finished and happy now. Ceoil (talk) 19:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support Thanks for the ping. No outstanding concerns - looks great. – Juliancolton | Talk 16:27, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: I think we are safe to ask for a source review now (unless I missed it), in the usual place. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:39, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:53, 6 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

RL0919 and Ceoil both commented on source reliability but I don't think went into formatting, which looks fine to me. All external links check out. I'm also happy with source reliability -- don't recall seeing ISFDB before but quite satisfied with it based on the discussion above. Sorry I didn't get a chance to do a full review this time but I think the team above has given it a good workout... :-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:01, 7 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:07, 7 March 2017 (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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