Template:Did you know nominations/The Goblin Emperor

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: promoted by Allen3 ^talk 11:42, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

The Goblin Emperor

• ... that
  Katherine Addison's fantasy novel The Goblin Emperor has been described as "defiantly anti-grimdark
  "?

Created/expanded by Sandstein (talk). Self nominated at 11:57, 15 February 2015 (UTC).

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Via dei Coronari

• New, long enough and sourced appropriately, including the hook (in which I learned a new literary term). Meets criteria. No dups or impermissible paraphrasing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:26, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

• I'm concerned that some of the unique phrasing in this article is identical to the sources but is not quoted. Examples include "heavy-handed morality, and a too-perfect protagonist" and "cackling overlord". Nikkimaria (talk) 02:27, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• I'm open to any suggestions how the phrasing could be improved, but the statements at issue are clearly attributed to the source ("Foz Meadows ... noted that ... it did not personify either as a cackling overlord", "Jared Shurin ... was disappointed that the ... novel [featured] a heavy-handed morality, and a too-perfect protagonist"), so it's not as though we're plagiarizing anybody, right? I don't think that it's useful or desirable to replace any description with synonyms just for the sake of originality, which I always thought isn't exactly what we're all about.  Sandstein  17:08, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• Rather than rephrasing, I'm suggesting that you should quote these unique passages, per Wikipedia:Close_paraphrasing#Quotation_of_non-free_text. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• I agree that quotation marks are appropriate for quotations that are a sentence long or more, but for a few (relatively common) words? This would mean that practically every piece of prose on Wikipedia that is faithful to its source's wording such as not to misrepresent it (which should be most of our articles) would be a near-illegible mess of quotation marks, or a
  WP:QUOTEFARM. That's taking the avoidance of the appearance of plagiarism a bit too far, I think.  Sandstein 
  22:04, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• I can't agree: the phrasings in question are to my mind uncommon and warrant quoting. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:55, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
• Indicating agreement with talk, these need quoting.Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 23:12, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

• Adding my agreement to the Nikkimaria and Mary Mark Ockerbloom: "cackling overlord" is a clear red flag when not quoted, and the use of "personify" in that sentence also problematic. There's also another issue, this time with the hook, which I have just struck: the phrase "has been described as 'defiantly anti-grimdark'" is misleading. First, the quote "defiantly anti-grimdark", taken from the Pornokitsch review, is problematic in two ways: first, the reviewer claims the book "has been heralded as a 'defiantly anti-grimdark' fantasy", but the quoted words do not actually exist in the linked source, which is commentary by the novel's author, who can't really be said to have heralded anything. If you read her commentary, what she says is that she doesn't "entirely know why the story turned in a defiantly non-grimdark direction" except that her protagonist, Maia, wouldn't "be an antihero". That's "defiantly non-grimdark", not "defiantly anti-grimdark", and this is the book's author saying it while the reviewer was disagreeing with said assessment as an "oversimplification", among other issues. The fact that the novel has been nominated for the Nebula might help punch up a new hook. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:13, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

• ALT1 ... that
  Katherine Addison has been applauded for successfully joining high fantasy and steampunk? Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk
  ) 23:15, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
• I've also taken a stab at rewriting the problematic "grimdark" quotation section, so that it more accurately reflects the sources given. Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) Which brings me to ALT2 below:
• ALT2 ... that the protagonist of
  Katherine Addison turned the story "in a defiantly non-grimdark
  direction"?

• I've wikilinked "grimdark" in the above alt hook because it's also a relatively novel concept. I've no objection to the changes otherwise.  Sandstein  07:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• I've quoted the three short phrases of concern, and run a duplicate detector on all of the references to look for others -- IMO others are either titles, are quoted appropriately, or are sufficiently common phrases to not require quotation. I think that addresses all the outstanding concerns, so if someone else can review, this may be ready.Mary Mark Ockerbloom (talk) 11:27, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

• I'll pay it now - long enough, new enough. Let's just play it safe with ALT1 - sourced and ready to go. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)