Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Marvel Tales and Unusual Stories/archive1

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 Hog Farm via FACBot (talk) 11 April 2022 [1].

Marvel Tales and Unusual Stories

Nominator(s): Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:55, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a pair of magazines published by a dedicated science fiction fan in the 1930s. William Crawford's ambitions outran his financial resources, but his two semi-professional magazines were a pioneering effort to expand the new science fiction genre beyond the limits set by pulp magazine publishing standards. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:55, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Image review–pass it's asserted that the license wasn't renewed, and I am agfing that a thorough search was done. (t · c) buidhe 16:28, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:23, 13 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Aoba47

• I would include ALT text for File:Unusual Stories initial announcement.jpg.
• For the lead sentence, would it be more beneficial to expand science fiction to science fiction magazine?
• I would link pulp magazine in the lead just to help readers who may be less than familiar with the subject.

This is more of a placeholder. My above comments are limited to the lead, but I will attempt to do a full review either this Thursday or Friday as those are my "weekends" (i.e. when I have time off work). I look forward to reading this article as I do enjoy reading about these kinds of magazines. One of these days, I should really try my hand at one of these articles.

All done; thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:18, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• This is a super nitpick-y comment. For this citation title (The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the beginning to 1950), I would capitalize Beginning.

  Surprisingly that's lower case both on the cover and the title page -- see here, though I see Amazon decided to capitalize it in their listing. I'd be inclined to leave it the way the publisher has it. Or is there some MoS rule about title case for book titles? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:24, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you for the explanation. I agree that it is best to go with how the book and publisher represent it. I do not believe there is a MoS rule about this, but I am not the best person to ask about that.

  Aoba47 (talk) 13:54, 15 March 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

• Thank you for your patience with my review. I support the FAC based on the prose. If you have the time or interest, I would greatly appreciate any help with
  Aoba47 (talk) 02:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

  Thanks! I had a look at your FAC, and I see there are currently three supports; I know more is better but I think I'm going to take a crack at a couple of other FACs that don't have three supports yet -- I hate to see something get archived for lack of commentary. If "Mindful" is still languishing in two or three weeks feel free to ping me again. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:03, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you for your response, and I agree that it is best to help other FACs who have not received as much commentary.
  Aoba47 (talk) 14:30, 16 March 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]

• "A Pennsylvania fan, William L. Crawford, was an early science fiction fan" - any way to avoid repetition of "fan"? Maybe change the first one to "A Pennsylvania native"....?

  I decided to just cut the mention of Pennsylvania; it's in the bibliographic section but here it's unnecessary detail. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Refs in multiple places in the second paragraph are not in correct numerical order

  I've fixed this, because I know it annoys some people, but I don't think it's a requirement -- I don't usually bother because citation numbers aren't very stable -- if you decide to remove a citation early in the article it cause half a dozen cases of out-of-order citations. Anyway, fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• "increased the size from digest to pulp format" - is it possible to clarify what these sizes actually are (eg give the dimensions)?

  Done, in a note to try to avoid interrupting the text. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• "reprints of two round-robin stories" - what is a "round-robin story"?

  A story in which multiple authors take turns at the writing. I've linked it; is that enough, or do you think a note in the text is needed? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Doesn't the Bibliographic details section just repeat content from the previous section?

  Well, not exactly -- the point of that section is to include all the fiddly little details that would clog up the flow if I were to put them in running text. It's common in magazine reference works to have a section like this, and I think readers familiar with the field expect something like this. If anything I'd rather remove some details from the rest of the article if it feels too repetitious -- perhaps drop the mentions of the page counts, for example? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• That's what I got :-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 16:35, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:11, 14 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  ChrisTheDude, pinging in case you didn't see these replies. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 09:03, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for the support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:45, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Mike Christie: - not a problem at all, sir. Might I enquire as to the possibility of a little QPQ review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1993–94 Gillingham F.C. season/archive1 should you have the time.....? ;-) -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 13:23, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Sure -- probably some time this weekend. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:39, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - pass

• Everything looks fine in terms of reliability and formatting, although I find linking publishers on their first instances usually helpful, should wiki-links exist for them. FrB.TG (talk) 14:41, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I'll make that change this evening. Thanks for the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:08, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Now done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:04, 26 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support by TDWB

• A small thing but should it not be "Marvel Tales and Unusual Stories are two related". I thought non-biographical things just are, they don't cease to be.

  You're right for most things, but there's an exception for periodicals -- see

  WP:WAS. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

• "believed that the pulp magazines of the time were too limited in what they would publish." MIght be apples and oranges, "day" seems more colloquial than time, to me anyway.

  Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I feel that the final sentence should be split at the "and Parnell and Ashley consider that Crawford was "the man who made the greatest effort to bridge the gap between the amateur and professional magazines." It has two and's one after the other with "and Crawford as a pioneer in his attempts to prove..."

  Split. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Frank Utpatel is a red link, again I don't do reviews often compared to putting things up for review but I thought FAs couldn't have red links.

  No, they're not as common as they once were but red links are still considered a good thing.

  WP:REDYES is an essay about it, and the FA criteria don't say anything about it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply

  ]

• I can't really find anything else, it's a brief easy read. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 18:10, 4 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review, Darkwarriorblake; replies above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

AK

• Disclaimer: I haven't checked references and will be claiming credit for this at the WikiCup.
• I've made a couple of minor tweaks based on MOS and links rather than list them here.

  Looks good, but I have one question; should the non-breaking space in e.g "H.P. Lovecraft" be before the "L" or before the "P"? I would have guessed the former, but most of the ones you added are between the initials. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:47, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Per

  MOS:INITIALS

  , before the P is correct as the nbsp should be between initials.

• "his finances were unequal to his ambitions" sounds a bit unencyclopedic and editorial-y to me.

  I'd like to keep this -- the sources are clear that he wanted to do more than he could afford to, and I think the phrase is not unencyclopedic just because it's not colourless. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:47, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not sure how encyclopedic "sf" in the place of science fiction is.

  It's the abbreviation used by most of the sources, included Ashley and the online SF Encyclopedia. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:47, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• "W. Anders Drake's story" → Is the name of the story known?

  Added, and per the source it's a pseudonym so I added that information too. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:47, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Four cover images is a bit repetitive, anything else that could be used?

  Fair point. I will see if I can find a picture of Lovecraft or Howard instead. I'd use one of Crawford but there's nothing that is out of copyright. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:47, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  I've substituted a picture of Lovecraft for one of the covers. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:56, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Nice article overall. AryKun (talk) 13:21, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  AryKun: thanks for the review; all points now responded to. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:56, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Support based on prose.
• Not necessary, but a review at my FAC would be appreciated. AryKun (talk) 10:00, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for the support. I'm out of town at the moment but should be starting to review again next week once I'm back in New York; I usually start at the bottom of FAC and work up but I see your FAC is towards the end so I'll probably review by the end of next week. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:21, 8 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This
  WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Hog Farm _Talk 13:39, 11 April 2022 (UTC)[reply
  ]