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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 User:SandyGeorgia 16:00, 13 June 2008 [1].

Creatures of Impulse[edit]

While a fairly minor play by Gilbert, Creatures of Impulse is, nonetheless, a quite interesting play, and remained popular for a good sixty years or so, and is still occasionally performed today. A great deal of work has gone into this article, including Peer reviews by Maria (for GA), User:Awadewit, and User:Ealdgyth (Peer review) It has been carefully copyedited by User:Finetooth. There is a limited amount of commentary on this short story and play; most of it appears in this article in some form. Perhaps if I get published we can say more, but until now, that's OR. =). Eh, It's late and I ramble, and none of you care what I have to say: It's the article that matters - so have a look and see what you think! Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 22:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Co-nomination – This play pre-dates Gilbert's famous collaboration with Arthur Sullivan and demonstrates the early development of Gilbert's famous "Topsy-Turvy" humor, where an absurd premise is followed to its logical conclusion. Gilbert later used this unique style of humor and satire in the highly successful series of Savoy operas. It also shows Gilbert's lifelong interest in supernatural transformations, a theme which he included in a few of the Savoy operas. I agree that all known sources of significant information about this play have been consulted in writing the article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please close and archive the peer review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:53, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is no excuse now, after a template was added to the nomination preview page that instructed to do this ;) Gary King (talk) 23:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Did it myself so I wouldn't have to keep checking back (open peer reviews stall the FAC closing bot). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Some web references are missing publishers. Gary King (talk) 23:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why not link to the Randegger biography directly on Allmusic.com? indopug (talk) 23:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments As mentioned, I checked the sources at PR. My concerns were addressed, things look pretty good. Links check out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • The "synopsis" notes should really be footnotes - there's nothing wrong in mixing citations with footnotes.
  • I'm going to have to at least partially disagree - the play is at least equally important as the short story, so moving the differences between the two to references (which noone reads) would give too little weight to important information. I suppose that the footnotes could instead be converted to prose, if you like? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Redundant redundancy is bad when it's bad redundancy and redundant:
  • "The play also gives three numbered villagers some dialogue in its opening scene." - pretty self-explanatory
  • "The short story makes explicit some elements only hinted at in the play:" - pretty self-explanatory
  • "Italian-born Alberto Randegger was better known as a conductor than as a composer, although he produced a number of works in England in the 1860s and 1870s." - obviously he produced a number of them; in fact, not only that, but he produced a number in the subset of complex numbers known as the positive integers.
  • "It originally included six songs, but this was eventually reduced to three, and some productions dispensed with the music entirely." - arguable, but I believe "this" contributes nothing to the sentence.
  • If you're sourcing the lead, you need to source everything, not just some things.
  • I agree and have removed the cites from the LEAD. The same cites are all given below in the fuller discussion. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't "composer-conductor" be "composer/conductor"?
  • I'm unsure whether "Gilbert, who had..." should be "Gilbert, whom had...".
  • I don't think so - it's subjective case, not objective. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "While the lyrics survive, the music was never published and is now lost." - change of tenses in the middle of the sentence. The present tense makes no sense with the second part, so I suggest changing "survive" to "survived" - it still makes perfect sense that way.
    • Wouldn't that put it in conflict with the "is" in is lost, or force us to say "was lost", which... seems a little odd phrasing, given its loss was a passive process. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 07:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "criticised for the lack of a significant plot or superstructure behind the fun." - behind "the fun"? I'm really unsure about that wording.
  • Fixed. Thanks for the comments. Please let us know if you have further questions about any of my replies above or feel that any of these items should be revisited. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 00:36, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I'm fine with the things you disagree with - the redundancy comment was referring to the examples of redundancy I provided below it. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 21:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from — MusicMaker5376.

  • Marie Litton produced premières of other Gilbert's plays... I'm not sure if that's correct. That whole sentence is a little sprawling. Perhaps breaking it into two would help?
  • It's definitely clearer, though still a little sprawling. Breaking the last part into its own sentence would allow a little explanation as to why 222 perfs was a success de scandale. A modern reader might consider 222 perfs a flop. -- MM
  • Good idea. As you know from the musical theatre article, 222 perfs was an unusually long run at that time, but this sentence is about a very minor point, and we should not distract the reader with a history lesson, so I tried to simplify the issue. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:01, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, I have to question the wisdom in using the short story synopsis. The bulk of the article is about the play; wouldn't it make more sense to use the play's synopsis and notate the differences between it and the short story?
  • Otherwise, good article! — MusicMaker5376 15:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've converted over. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I do think that works a little better. It seems more active. You may want to give it a good copy edit; I found a couple of errors, and there may be more that I missed. However, "As you may remember..." in reference to the old woman in the synopsis seems like an unnecessary and abrupt breaking of the fourth wall. The synopsis isn't that long, and that's such a strange character trait that it will most likely stick in people's minds. Perhaps: "The strange old lady's dietary habits had foiled a previous attempt...." — MusicMaker5376 17:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Great article. — MusicMaker5376 22:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments - Every time I read this article, it has improved! I just have a couple of questions and suggestions. — Awadewit 15:30, June 10, 2008 — continues after insertion below

  • I assume since there is no "Style and themes" section, there is not enough published information to add such a section? (You know I have to ask!)
    • Not really. Gilbert wrote around seventy to a hundred plays (I don't really feel like counting), which means that the biographies and critical notes on Gilbert tend to prioritise the lesser works downwards a bit, giving them only a page or so. We can expand this using contemporary sources, but not so far as a "style and themes" section. Indeed, at the moment, I believe the unpublished critical version I'm working on is probably the most detailed analysis of this to date, but I can't really cite that, now can I? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is this a reliable source? It may be, but I am not sure.
  • I read the discussion that you link, but it seems to support the idea that the All Music site IS reliable for classical music. In the linked discussion, an editor claims that *although it is reliable for most music* it is not reliable for heavy metal. The All Music site routinely prepares short biographies like this. Of course, it would be great to add ANOTHER reliable source, but All Music bios are referred to all over Wikipedia. You don't need to be notable to be a staff writer for a reliable source. Also, the fact that Randegger is long dead makes it unlikely that this little bio would display some kind of bias. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:18, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The linked discussion suggests that allmusic is reliable. Note, however, that it is not reliable because it is used "all over Wikipedia". It is reliable because it is fact-checked, etc. Awadewit (talk) 14:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I promised Shoe I would check Grove Online. Grove says this: "But his greatest influence was as a singing teacher: he helped to raise standards at the RAM and RCM, and his textbook Singing (London, 1893), one of Novello’s Music Primer’s, was widely used in English-speaking countries". Grove discusses his conducting and composing about equally and then ends with this statement. If you want, I can email the entire entry to someone. Awadewit (talk) 15:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks! Why don't you email it to Shoe and to me. -- Ssilvers (talk) 14:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is every page on the G&S archive as reliable as every other? For example, the Crowther pages are clearly reliable under our policies since he has published on G&S, but what about something like this?
    • That's not part of the Gilbert and Sullivan archive; however, Simon Moss is a respected dealer, so I'd say that that page is about as reliable as an auction catalogue, which, given it's only used to cite that a production happened, and the image of the programme is in support of this, should presumably be sufficient reliability. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh, sorry. I got confused by the "GSarchive" in the web address, but that answers my question, thanks. Awadewit (talk) 17:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mistress Dorothy is being courted by the miser Verditter. This is convenient because staying at the inn is a strange old lady, a mischievous fairy, who refuses to pay or to leave. - I don't think the "convenience" is made entirely clear to the reader.
  • Verditter tries bribery and is forced to keep handing out coins to everyone. - I wonder if highlighting the irony of these fairy punishments somewhere would be a good idea - a miser handing out money, etc. The synopsis hints at this irony, but never makes it explicit.

This article looks good and I anticipate being able to support soon. Awadewit (talk) 15:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments on images:

  • Image:WSGyounger.jpg has a source, but no details on authorship or date/place of publication.
  • Just as an aside, I absolutely cannot figure out why the lead image, Image:Ben Greet as Boomblehardt.jpg, is displaying with a black border around the image when the image itself has no border. It is doing this in both FireFox and Internet Explorer. Is it just me?
  • Apparently a caching issue. The black border has now been cropped from the image. Kelly hi! 14:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kelly hi! 01:33, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Notes: inconsistency in footnotes, some have page numbers as p. others as page. "Sums it up best"? Best according to whom, or is this original research/POV/editorializing? The review in Bell's Life in London and Sporting Chronicle perhaps summed it up best: ... Why does the chart in Characters and original cast use emdashes rather than endashes? The synopsis notes 1 and 2 don't have live links, are very hard to find, and the 1 and 2 can be confused with footnotes. I suggest a different note system, numbering them a and b, and making them live. See Gettysburg Address. Why is there italicized text in Synopsis? See WP:ITALICS on when they should be used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:56, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I addressed the first two of Sandy's comments. Shoe, can you take care of the Synopsis notes and italics comments? Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:17, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay. The characters chart uses an em-dash because the character is not present in the story (and is barely present in the play), and I though an en-dash looked too "small". Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The italics in the sysnopsis are distracting, I'm not sure when they were added, but I've removed all of them but the Opening note, which is a brief commentary before the synopsis. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe I've fixed the footnotes. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quick note: I'm feeling a bit ill, so it might be a day or two before I can respond to anything in-depth. It will be fixed, though. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:55, 13 June 2008 (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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