Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Kurt Vonnegut/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 Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 23:51, 24 August 2015 [1].

Kurt Vonnegut[edit]

Nominator(s): ceradon (talk • edits) 14:24, 13 August 2015 (UTC); Wehwalt (talk · contribs)[reply]

This article is about the late author Kurt Vonnegut. Always sardonic, and always funny. Wehwalt and I have been working on it over the past few weeks, and are happy enough with the result that we want to bring it to FA. Cheers, ceradon (talk • edits) 14:24, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Maury Markowitz[edit]

  • Support This is one of the few examples of a recent PR that seemed to work. I reviewed it there top to bottom, but was only able to find a single minor suggestion worth posting. Excellent article that I think will see a lot of general interest. Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your thoughtful review at PR and for your review and support here.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:27, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Squeamish Ossifrage (and source review)[edit]

Collapsed first round of reference issues

I'm going to be picking on reference formatting here. I've not even started to examine the prose, although I do actually look forward to doing so, because Vonnegut. Unfortunately, there are some problems down there in Source land.

  • I don't think I understand why the BBC article is directly dropped in the Citations; often, that's done for web sources or the like, while only print (and sometimes only book) sources appear in the Sources/Bibliography list. But that doesn't seem to be what's happening here.
Done. --ceradon (talk • edits) 23:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Entries in the source list need to be presented in alphabetical order by author. (Barsamian is the first one out of order, but the whole thing needs audited).
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are at least a couple cases where a journal citation attempts to brute-force formatting by providing an |issue number but using markup to display it in bold (see Boomhower and Hayman, at least). I can confim that Boomhower should simply have that be rendered as |volume (and probably converted out of Roman numerals), and it's safe to assume the same is true for the Hayman source.
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Freese, Morse, Tally 2013 reference uses citation template instead of the cite family, resulting in differences in formatting.
I'm aware. I couldn't find a cite template that would work. Open to suggestions.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Cite book should get what you want. Here's me taking a stab at converting the Freese reference. Note that Tally is actually the editor of the complete volume (rather than its author), and, strangely, the official title is apparently just Kurt Vonnegut, in the Critical Insights series. Salem Press tries to have it both ways, Worldcat has it like this ... YMMV. Anyway:
  • Freese, Peter (2013). "'Instructions for use': the opening chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five and the reader of historiographical metafictions". In Tally, Robert T., Jr. (ed.). Kurt Vonnegut. Critical Insights. Salem Press. pp. 95–117. ISBN 978-1-4298-3848-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
Let me know if that's functional. Otherwise, we'll explore other options. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 22:56, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. Thanks.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:57, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ideally, ISBN-10s should be converted to ISBN-13s.
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since the Gannon and Taylor source is citing the Salon.com reprint of the Jacobin article (which is an exclusively-online version), I'm fairly sure this needs a retrieval date. :*Similarly, I'd provide retrieval dates for the Grossman and Harris sources, and ... a lot more web sources. In general, just check them all, because you're missing lots.
It's my understanding that retrieval dates aren't necessary if the content is unlikely to change, such as a past news articles or a google books piece. I'll put them all in if you like, though.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
My interpretation of the MOS best practice for retrieval dates is that they are not required (and, indeed, actively discouraged) when the online source is demonstrably a mirror or archive of the print source. So, if you're citing a book, and linking to Google Books, you don't need a retrieval date; the link is a convenience link. Newspaper and magazine sites occupy a gray area in this age where the online content is often broader than what was printed offline. In cases where the online copy explicitly states print publication information, I'll tend to provide that full set of bibliographic information, and the link, but no retrieval date. When it was an online-only source, or the offline status is unclear, I'll cite material as purely a web source and provide a retrieval date. Regardless, retrieval dates are valuable even for pages whose content is likely to be static (like past news stories) simply because the link may change (several of the big news sites have reshuffled their URL trees in the past) and having the retrieval date aids in ensuring that archived copies located later match the content the original editor referred to. Whew! That's a lot of text for not providing an explicit rule, isn't it? Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 22:56, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for that. I think we've covered it now.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Publication location is not needed for periodicals, as with the Hayman and Michaelis source, even when you've opted in to using them for books.
I've axed all of them. They are of limited use in an internet age.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Hattenhauer source is incomplete, it needs |volume=35 and |issue=4.
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The NPR article credited to Vonnegut himself is a mess. Vonnegut didn't write it, for one thing, especially since he was already dead. Rather, Tom Vitale did. It also needs a retrieval date, as you're citing the web version and not the original All Things Considered broadcast.
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think it's necessary to identify Cornell University as the source of the Cornell Chronicle in the Lowery source, although others are free to disagree with me there.
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • And So It Goes should be italicized within the article title of the Mallory source.
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • You can drop the LLC from the publisher for the Shields reference.
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding Smith 1997, I really don't consider Cliff's Notes to be a high-quality source.
Removed.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The New York University School of Medicine database page cited with the author "Unknown" actually was written by its listed annotator, Martin Kohn. I am neutral as to whether this constitutes a reliable source.
Done. --ceradon (talk • edits) 23:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Wallingford source is not, strictly speaking, published by the University of Northern Iowa. Rather, it's in the personal webspace of the cited author. I don't believe this to be a reliable source.
Done. --ceradon (talk • edits) 23:29, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • You've opted to cite publisher locations, mostly, but there are a few book sources that lack them, and it's an all-or-nothing choice. At the least, they're missing from all of Vonnegut's works and the Zinn and Arnove source; I may have missed some.
Nothinged.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sure there's something that can be done to clean up the presentation of the external links and sort them into some sort of order. There's some broken markup at the end of hte Lilly Library's second link (does that warrant two?).
I cut that one. It seems a fairly conventional order, starting with the official website and going by relevance. It's similar to what I've seen in quite a few articles.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm neutral regarding the article at this time. There's quite a bit of cleanup needed in the references, and a couple of sources that I object to on WP:RS grounds, but this doesn't seem impossible to salvage. Again, no input on prose or images at this time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. We'll work these through. Ceradon, some I've left because I think you're more familiar with the area than me.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:08, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
...and the second.
}

Back to do another pass, including a prose review.

  • "The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library was established in Vonnegut's honor, and numerous scholarly works were released, examining Vonnegut's writing and humor."
Perhaps simply "numerous scholarly works examined"?
I fixed it, I think. Please check to make sure.
  • "were among the wealthiest in the city, their wealth deriving"
"Deriving" sounds awkward here (perhaps it should be "derived"?), but the "wealthiest ... wealth" close pairing is also a problem.
Done.
  • Why is Public School No. 43 in quotation marks? Is it worth piping a linking to James Whitcomb Riley High School (doing so will probably also need a source identifying Riley as the same institution as PS 43, such as this one, and might warrant some cleanup to that target article).
Done.
  • There appears to be a space missing between the preceeding reference and the sentence that starts "Edith Vonnegut...".
Done.
  • "This meant that should he leave Cornell, he would most likely be drafted into the United States Army."
This strikes me as written in the incorrect tense.
Not sure how I could fix that. Suggestions?
  • Sorry for being slow getting back to this one. I think the best solution might be to rearrange a couple sentences:
Currently: "This meant that should he leave Cornell, he would most likely be drafted into the United States Army. He was placed on academic probation in May 1942 and dropped out the following January. Rather than wait to be drafted, he enlisted in the army and in March 1943 reported to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for basic training."
Proposed: "He was placed on academic probation in May 1942 and dropped out the following January. No longer eligible for a student deferment, he would likely have been drafted into the United States Army. Instead of waiting to be conscripted, he enlisted in the army and in March 1943 reported to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for basic training."
Or something like that, adjusting the links accordingly. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:17, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Inserted with some modification.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:25, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "They never expected Dresden to get bombed, Vonnegut said. "There were very few air-raid shelters in town and no war industries," he recalled, "just cigarette factories, hospitals, clarinet factories.""
I believe this needs reworded. "They" is referring to the Germans here, but that's not at all grammatically justified. And the "Vonnegut said ... he recalled" pairing is a problem; I don't think you need the intraquote attribution here at all, at least in the current form.
Done.
  • Why is Ghost Dance in quotation marks?
Fixed.
  • "Bantamwith" has a missing space.
Done.
  • In the section about The Sirens of Titan, you have both Rumfoord and Rumsfoord. As I recall, Winston's last name lacks an s.
Good catch. Done.
  • "They are killed as they dance by the Handicapper General"
Perhaps "As they dance, they are killed by the Handicapper General"?
Done.
  • You have a single rendering of Slaughterhouse-Five as Slaughter-House Five.
Done.
  • "He also read the Classics, like those of Aristophanes, who, like Vonnegut, wrote humorous critiques of contemporary society."
This needs to be tweaked. Appositive phrases are supposed to be removable, but trying to do that here, gets you "...the Classics, who, like Vonnegut..." which doesn't work.
Done.
  • "a group of individuals appointed by God to do His will"
Can anyone confirm what the MOS stance on capital-Him pronoun use for God is? I honestly don't know.
Lower case. It's MOS:CAPS#Religion. Lowered.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:04, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...while at General Electric, Vonnegut witnessed machines..."
You've already glossed GE, and used it for quite some time. Was this intentionally left spelled out (because it's been awhile since the GE section)?
Intentional. A reviewer mentioned it at the peer review.
  • In the Works section, you've got an "unless otherwise cited..." introduction, but don't ever otherwise cite.
Done.
  • Second pass through references:
  • In Blount, you cite |issue=Sunday Book Review. I think that's better cited as |department=.
Done.
  • There are still some ISBN-10s that can be converted to ISBN-13s. Farrell, Shields, Thomas, all the Vonnegut books, and Zinn.
Done.
  • There's something odd about the templating on the Hattenhauer reference, with a stray "and" and an extraneous period. I didn't peek at the code to see why.
Fixed this one.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:15, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hayman still needs |issue changed to |volume
Done.
  • Regarding Kohn, New York University School of Medicine is apparently generally styled without a comma.
Done.
  • There are a handful of duplicate links: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (2nd appearance in the last paragraph of "Struggling writer"), Bokononism (2nd appearance in "Religion"), and Aldous Huxley (2nd appearance in "Influences").
All delinked.

Despite the long lists of criticisms I've produced, in general, I support promotion. Vonnegut is a complex figure with oodles of information to condense into a single article, and I think this does an admirable job at doing so. Nothing I've raised as problems should be difficult to resolve, nor fatal to promotion by the end of the FAC process. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:30, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for the review and support.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:48, 17 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Glad to have been of assistance. I look forward to seeing Vonnegut's article with a bronze star. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 14:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Squeamish Ossifrage: just to make sure, that was a full source review right. It looked pretty full to me Just wanted to make sure so I don't go off finding another person to do a source review. Thank you, --ceradon (talk • edits) 07:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, my evaluations on this one should be considered a full source review in the FAC sense. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 13:25, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SNUGGUMS[edit]

Almost there. Most of my concerns were addressed in PR, but please do address Squeamish Ossifrage's comments above. Additionally, I'd use citations from the And So It Goes book itself. Snuggums (talk / edits) 21:36, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the review and encouragement. Citations from the book how?--Wehwalt (talk) 22:12, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
By using in-text references to it in the same way you have for the other citations to books. Snuggums (talk / edits) 22:24, 13 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As the article currently stands, I'm seeing a book review used for And So It Goes when it's better to use the book itself instead. Snuggums (talk / edits) 03:49, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Done.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:48, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think we're up to date with both current reviewers but they might want to double-check nothing fell between us.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:12, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you again for that.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:07, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SchroCat[edit]

  • Support I had my say at the PR and this article has improved since. great work - SchroCat (talk) 14:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your support, SchroCat. Cheers, --ceradon (talk • edits) 18:13, 14 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Image review from Nikkimaria[edit]

  • File:Kurt_Vonnegut_1972.jpg: can you clarify the provenance of this image? Was it shown during a TV program, or put out in promotional materials, or...?
    • It appears to have been aired in advance of the release of Between Time and Timbuktu in March 1972. Since the PBS/WNET episode was aired in March 1972 as part of NET Playhouse, and the image was taken in 1972, it was likely promotional material. I can't find the listing on eBay (I saw it a few weeks ago; I don't know what happened). --ceradon (talk • edits) 04:59, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • As this was taken in 1972, and thus prior to 1977, the copyright would have had to have been renewed. From the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, that is not the case, so it's more than probable that this is in the public domain. --ceradon (talk • edits) 12:36, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • Okay, so suggest switching from no-notice to not-renewed. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I checked that too. No indication from the page images that it was copyrighted in the first place.--Wehwalt (talk) 04:43, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Kurt-Vonnegut-US-Army-portrait.jpg: where are you getting that attribution from? The given source only credits us
Nikkimaria the only pictures I can find related to this are attributed back to Wikipedia, but, since it's clear that this had to be taken before 1945 when Vonnegut was young, that would have to mean that the copyright would have had to be renewed if someone, for whatever reason, wanted to hold on to it. That is ostensibly not the case, so is that permissible? --ceradon (talk • edits) 12:36, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Only if we can show that it was published at that time - if it was not published until after 1977 then renewal would not yet be a consideration. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Kurt_Vonnegut_and_his_family,_1955.jpg: are we sure Edie has the right to release copyright here? She wasn't the photographer. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:25, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If it satisfied OTRS, do we have any call to go behind that? Don't we just accept that they did their work properly?--Wehwalt (talk) 04:50, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be interested to know what was said to OTRS - do either of you have access? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:13, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: Please check your email. --ceradon (talk • edits) 19:36, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, that's fine, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:48, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Editorofthewiki[edit]

  • Support After a read through and small copyedit, I think this is ready for the star. It is well written and comprehensive. Good job! ~EDDY (talk/contribs)~ 23:03, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for taking the time and trouble, and for your kind words.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:21, 20 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Iridescent[edit]

  • Support. Everything I had to raise, I raised at the PR and it was addressed then. Support with the same disclaimer as my comments at the PR, that I'm taking accuracy on faith, as this is a topic on which I know very little. ‑ iridescent 10:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the review there and your ongoing support. I hope as well we do Vonnegut justice, with accuracy.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:04, 21 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Brianboulton[edit]

  • Support: I made my detailed comments at the peer review, and they were all dealt with satisfactorily. In reading the article through again just now, I saw this: ""He later stated that the loss in confidence in government..." I am sure that the first the first "in" should be an "of" – it certainly reads better that way, and I would advise this change. Otherwise, fine work. Brianboulton (talk) 17:00, 22 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Made that change. Thank you for your support. --ceradon (talk • edits) 17:15, 22 August 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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