Template:Did you know nominations/Wolfgang Hohlbein

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by Miyagawa (talk) 13:36, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Wolfgang Hohlbein[edit]

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Wolfgang Hohlbein

... that Wolfgang Hohlbein is among Germany's most successful fiction authors, writing more than 200 books and selling more than 43 million copies?

ALT1:... that despite being one of Germany's most successful fiction authors, almost none of Wolfgang Hohlbein's books have been translated into English?
ALT2:... that Wolfgang Hohlbein, one of Germany's most successful fiction authors, had his own reality show featuring him and his family?
ALT3: ... that Wolfgang Hohlbein has written more than 200 books, selling more than 43 million copies, but almost none have been translated into English?
Comment: Was an unsourced BLP stub with only a few sentences, has been expanded and sourced by me.

2x expanded and sourced (BLP) by Dead Mary (talk). Self-nominated at 19:23, 10 September 2016 (UTC).

Comment only ALT3 added, combining ALT0 and ALT1. "Germany's " could be put in front of the title, but with such a German name it seems unnecessary. Edwardx (talk) 00:15, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Article meets new requirements as an expanded BLP. I count about 4,200 characters of prose. However, I see a potential problem with ALT0, ALT1, and ALT2. I might be wrong because I can only Google Translate to read the sources, but I think they say "fantasy writer" instead of "fiction writer". I have tweaked the article, but if someone who knows how to read German could verify this or tell me I'm wrong, then we could verify these hooks. ^Falling_Gravity 02:45, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, I can read German (haha :P). It seems there is some confusion about the use of interchanging genres in the article (mb it is also my limited language skills). To clear it up what he actually does: He writes fiction stories in multiple genres. And those genres are fantasy, horror and in his early days also science fiction. He writes books in all of those genres and he wrote a lot of books (that is the point). Dead Mary (talk) 03:09, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Do the sources say he's a successful writer in those genres? If so then the hooks should probably reflect that. ^Falling_Gravity 06:49, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Source 2: Die Hohlbeins sind Bestseller auf dem Jugendbuchmarkt. Sie werden viel gelesen und selten gelobt. [sic] Sie bedienen das Genre Fantasy, und das gilt als trivial. Es ist eine unreine Mischung aus Phantastischem und Märchenhaftem, aus englischem Gothic novel und deutscher Romantik, aus Science-fiction und Sage.

The Hohlbeins are bestseller on the youth literature market. They serve the genre of fantasy, which is considered trivial. It is a mix of speculative fiction and fairytales, of english gothic novels and German romanticism, of science fiction and legends

Source 3: Und doch scheint hier zunächst alles so, wie man es sich von dem erfolgreichsten Fantasy-Autor Deutschlands erwartet, fast zu perfekt.

And here everything looks like what you would expect from Germany's most successful fantasy author, almost too perfect.

Source 4: Hat man die erste Folge der neuen Doku-Soap „Die Hohlbeins – Eine total fantastische Familie“ über Deutschlands erfolgreichsten Fantasy-Autoren mitverfolgt,...

If one has watched the first episode of the new docu-soap „Die Hohlbeins – Eine total fantastische Familie“ about Germany's most successful fantasy authors...

Source 5: Er gilt als einer der erfolgreichsten, einer der meistgelesenen deutschen Fantasy-Autoren.

He is considered as one of the most successful and most read German fantasy authors.

Source 8: Wolfgang Hohlbein, erfolgreichster deutscher Fantasy-Autor (in the title)

Wolfgang Hohlbein, most successful German fantasy author

I am not quite sure what you are looking for, the direct translation of "fiction writer" is not really used in the German language (Fiktion Autor would be the literal translation and nobody uses that). Usually such authors are described as authors for Romane (novels) or the genre is directly mentioned, because an author in the genre of fantasy (Fantasy Autor) is a fiction author by definition. If there are some questions left, I can easily provide more or other sources if requested. Here is another source which mentions all the genres again:

Er ist einer der erfolgreichsten zeitgenössischen deutschen Schriftsteller: Wolfgang Hohlbein. [sic] Seither hat Hohlbein 200 Romane und Geschichten - Fantasy, Abenteuer, Horror und Thriller - geschrieben und 44 Millionen Exemplare verkauft.
He is considered as one the most successful contemporary German authors: Wolfgang Hohlbein. [sic] Since then Hohlbein wrote more than 200 novels and storys - fantasy, adventure, horror and thriller - and sold more than 44 million copies.

Of course I am also open for changes in the hook if you think this is needed. (I am btw. the nominator/author of the article in case you didnt notice, so I dont know if it is ok if I check for procedural reasons.) Dead Mary (talk) 18:55, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

ALT4:... that Wolfgang Hohlbein is among Germany's most successful fantasy authors, writing more than 200 books and selling more than 43 million copies?
ALT5:... that despite being one of Germany's most successful fantasy authors, almost none of Wolfgang Hohlbein's books have been translated into English?

I've provided two more hooks based on the sources which read "fantasy author". Given my edits to the article and these new hooks, I'm requesting another review. ^Falling_Gravity 17:41, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

re-review: article is still big enough, and all paragraphs cited. However expansion is not enough. Its gone from 3234 to 4058 characters. It is neutral enough. ALT4 and 5 are both short enough-145 chars. Hook ALT4 is in the article and cited and confirmed by references. Earwig's bot cannot find problems with copyviolation. File is in the article and free to use. This is the user's first nomination, so QPQ not needed. Hook ALT5 is not precisely in the article, and once looking at the references, they don't say that at all. Why didn't I check the lack of expansion earlier! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:43, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Note: I went back and recounted the characters and found that I had left out some paragraphs of prose. By this new count, I found the pre-expanded article had 3115 characters of prose. ^Falling_Gravity 01:32, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I want to comment on the points raised by both of you:

Its gone from 3234 to 4058 characters.

I have to object. It went from 1352 characters to 4298 characters of prose. Or are you counting the bibliography list part in the old version which had nothing to do with the person too? That was just a long list of his books together with some trivial in-universe descriptions of what is happening in the books. I don't think that should count because that was literally just unsourced garbage which had nothing to do with the subject.

I count from before the editing began. This did have the bibliography, and some text was counted in that, but not much. We don't get to exclude low quality writing or stuff the new editor does not want from the pre-count. Expansion has not been 5x anyway, there were references before, so it was not a unreferenced BLP expansion, just a non-inline cited by poor references expansion. The solution is to write more to get the expansion up to size. I have been using the DYKC tool to count. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:36, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I used the tool too and I counted the text which is 1352 characters. I did leave the Bibliography alone because it is literally garbage. It is not just low quality writing (I would understand it in that case), it was two large bloated paragraphs which had nothing to do with him him as a person inside of an extremely large list which does not belong there. Also expansion has to be 2x not 5x for referencing an unreferenced BLP. The article did not have a reference. It had an external link to his homepage and a fanpage. Thats not a reference, as those 2 links referenced nothing which had been written in the article. Dead Mary (talk) 12:20, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Hook ALT5 is not precisely in the article, and once looking at the references, they don't say that at all.

Well it is same as hook 3 and is actually indeed sourced? It is a two-part hook. "Most successful German fantasy author" is used by literally every source as shown above. The second part (lack of English translations) is specifically discussed in source 8. And that is both in the article. Dead Mary (talk) 07:12, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

On the topic of ALT5, the first part is OK. The hook is most likely true. It is that the wording is different to the article. The reference 8 does not say it clearly either, instead saying it is difficult for German authors to be translated to English, and excluding English from the list of language. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:47, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Here:

In wie viele Sprachen sind Ihre Bücher inzwischen übersetzt worden?

Hohlbein: Mit Ausnahme des Englischen in alle westeuropäischen und auch in viele osteuropäische Sprachen. Gerade ist ein Buch auf Koreanisch erschienen. In China wird nächstes Jahr etwas herauskommen.

To how much languages do your books have been translated too?

Hohlbein: With the exception English to all West-European languages and a lot of Eastern European languages. Recently a book has been published in Korean.

Warum nicht im englisch-sprachigen Raum? Haben die genügend eigene Fantasy-Autoren?

Hohlbein: Das wird es wohl sein. Es ist nicht nur für mich, sondern überhaupt für deutsche Autoren unglaublich schwer, ins Englische übersetzt zu werden.

Why not into the English speaking sphere? Do they have enough fantasy authors of their own?

Hohlbein: That may be it. It is not only for me, but for other German authors really hard do get books translated into English.

They ask him in which languages his books have been translated and he answers in all except English. And they ask him why not into the English speaking sphere. I think that is pretty clear. I mean I could also give a reference to worldcat or DNB, where the absence of any English translated books would show that too, but I think that would be not appropriate enough. ;P Dead Mary (talk) 12:20, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I am happy with ALT4. The issue is the insufficient expansion! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:07, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Well you are currently arguing that I have to expand the article 5 times instead of 2 times and that the base prose is 3234 characters and not 1352 characters. I dont agree with that (see my comment above), but that means according to you I would have to expand the article in its current form another 5 times. That is basically impossible to do. Dead Mary (talk) 15:31, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Dead Mary, the expansion is judged on the whole of the article prior to expansion. Per WP:DYKSG#A4: Fivefold expansion is calculated from the previously existing article, no matter how bad it was (copyvios are an exception), no matter whether you kept any of it and no matter if it were up for deletion. So even though your September edits dropped the previously existing Enwor prose sections, they still count toward the original size, hence the 3243. For the 5x vs. 2x, external links have sometimes been considered reference enough to warrant a 5x expansion rather than a 2x expansion; you might want to ask on the WT:DYK page to get a broader base of opinions on this particular case. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:37, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I understand the rules, but I don't agree with the way they are applied. Anyway I don't want to cause that much disruption. If the reviewers think the eligibility criteria are not fulfilled then that's the way it is. I am ok with that. I don't have enough material to expand the article 2x or even 5x times from its current form again, so if reviewers agree that the article is not suitable then I am ok with it not becoming a DYK. Dead Mary (talk) 22:00, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Article has, unfortunately, not been expanded sufficiently per DYK rules. If it eventually becomes a Good Article, it can be nominated at that time. Sorry this nomination didn't work out. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:36, 27 November 2016 (UTC)