Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sara Northrup Hollister/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 archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 14:48, 12 September 2015 [1].

Sara Northrup Hollister[edit]

Nominator(s): Prioryman (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This has been a Good Article for some time; I've recently significantly expanded it further. The individual that it covers is noteworthy in two aspects, first as an occult practitioner and latterly as the second wife of L. Ron Hubbard. Her life story has since been (purposefully) obscured - quite literally airbrushed out of history, as the article describes. I've sought to recover it from a variety of sources, some published only in the last few years, where it appears in a fragmentary form alongside the more widely known life story of her husband and the occultist Jack Parsons. As far as I know this is the first time that anyone's put together a complete biography of Sara Northrup Hollister's life. I think it would make a good featured article; it's an interesting story and I think it would have wide appeal, despite the relatively obscure subject matter. Anyway, here it is for consideration. Prioryman (talk) 21:51, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • You're quite right - the picture has been there for a long time. I've taken it out. Prioryman (talk) 17:09, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Squeamish Ossifrage[edit]

Looking only at references and reference formatting:

  • As you're linking authors on first appearance in the references, you should probably link Tony Ortega in ref#26.
  • The two taped Hubbard lectures probably require more bibliographic information than is provided. Are these lectures published? If so, we need that publication information. If not (that is to say, it's a private or unpublished recording of the lecture), then the source is problematic on verifiability grounds.
  • Actually only one of them is a lecture. I've expanded its reference to give more bibliographic info. I'd mistakenly called the other a lecture; it's not, it's a published booklet for which I've added the bibliographic data. No page numbers. Prioryman (talk) 19:27, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just a brief follow-up on that booklet source. The correct abbreviation for Kansas is KS, not KA. Because reasons, I guess? Also, this is normally where I'd complain that book/booklet sources without assigned ISBNs should have OCLC numbers where possible. But, instead, I'll be helpful: Dianetics: Axioms is OCLC 14677877. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:50, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "KS" is just the postal code, not the state abbreviation. Kans. is the official abbreviation for the state.[2] Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 08:02, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • You link Hubbard in ref#74; you should probably (only) link at first appearance (ref#73) instead.
  • Ref#81 (Hubbard, cited in Wright) isn't formatted to the same standard as other references and needs re-examination.
  • I'm having some trouble with the UPI source. Are you citing this as published in a specific newspaper? I cannot locate it in the UPI Archives, although their search engine admittedly leaves a lot to be desired.
  • As an aside, I note that the text this reference supports opens "To this day," which is problematic phrasing for Wikipedia articles in general, but even more so here, where the source is 23 years old.
  • It's from a Lexis Nexis search. The header info is as follows:
May  21, 1982, Friday, BC cycle
SECTION: Regional News
DISTRIBUTION: Arizona-Nevada, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Utah, Washington
LENGTH: 576 words
No headline is given and it does not indicate which newspapers it ran in - it's evidently a raw newswire release. I take your point about "To this day", so I've reworded that line. Prioryman (talk) 21:47, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • And this is why I have a personal loathing for Lexis Nexis. If that's all it gives us, and that's all we have, I suppose I'll be satisfied, but I don't have to like it. Especially as it was distributed with no headline and we have no idea which papers carried it, trying to find a source that published it is ... challenging. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:28, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does it matter which papers carried it? It's quite possible that none of them did, but that doesn't matter. Being published on the UPI newswire is still publication. Prioryman (talk) 21:50, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not at all convinced that Ortega's The Underground Bunker is a reliable source (which is what ref#88 is citing, even if it doesn't say so).
  • I don't think the claims being sourced here are directly impacted by WP:BLP, so the absolute exception at WP:SPS isn't triggered, and I'll concede he probably counts as a recognized expert (albeit one with an established point of view on the issues). In any case, the reference needs to include The Underground Bunker (probably as |work). Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 19:50, 19 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • ISBNs should be formatted as properly-hyphenated ISBN-13s. Use this tool as necessary.
  • In the Atack source, "New York" is sufficient for the publisher location (that is, do not style it "New York, NY"). New York is one of the shortlist of cities well-known enough to need no clarification. You have this correct in the other sources (London is also correct as is, in the Lamont source).
  • You wikilink only one publisher. These are optional (and I don't offer them myself, generally), but you should be consistent in linking (on first appearance in the references, anyway) those publishers for which we have articles, if you choose to do so.
  • The two television broadcasts are not properly formatted. In addition, while I'm less familiar with the expectation for broadcast mateiral than I am with print sources, I do not believe that sufficient bibliographic information has been provided here to satisfy our standards for source citation.
  • I've done my best to shoehorn them into Template:Cite AV media, which I believe is the one to use for this sort of thing. I don't know what other bibliographic material you need, though. We have the broadcaster and date of broadcast; what else is needed? Prioryman (talk) 17:46, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll let someone else with more experience with the FAC expectations for television sources weigh in on this, I think, but at the very least, the entire entries appear to be italicized, which needs correction. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:28, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Something in the template is causing the italicisation. I can't work it out myself, I'm afraid - I'll ask at the village pump for advice. Prioryman (talk) 21:50, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looks like the problem is the bracketed <cite> tags. You should be able to fix this by using |ref to name the source entries and then linking to them from the actual inline citation with {{sfn}} or your preferred equivalent solution. At least, I think that's what's wrong! Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:56, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yep, that was the problem. It all seems to be fixed now - thanks for the help. Prioryman (talk) 22:19, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Urban source needs to be styled in title case.

Lean oppose on the sourcing and source styling grounds. I'm concerned about the insufficient bibliographic information for the taped lectures and the television broadcasts. That UPI source, and the use thereof, is also a matter of some concern. No opinion with regard to prose at this time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Couple of outstanding issues. Struck opposition, but no replacement opinion for now. I'm going to be busier this week than I'd like to be, but ideally I'll get a chance to examine the prose at some point. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:28, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks, I've tackled (most of) the rest of the issues that you've raised and will see if I can get someone to help with fixing the AV template problem. Prioryman (talk) 21:50, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: Unfortunately this has failed to attract any support for promotion after being open for over three weeks—it will be archived shortly. You may renominate after the standard two-week waiting period. --Laser brain (talk) 14:48, 12 September 2015 (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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