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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/George Griffith/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 David Fuchs via FACBot (talk) 18 January 2024 [1].

George Griffith edit

Nominator(s): TompaDompa (talk) 04:06, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

George Griffith inhabits a fascinating position in the history of science fiction. He got a couple of years' head start on H. G. Wells, and was briefly the leading sci-fi author in Britain. Since then, however, he has descended into obscurity so completely that the article was nominated for deletion back in May. I spent some time tracking down sources in order to bring the article to WP:Good article status, which it reached in August. Since then, it has been at WP:Peer review for a few months. The peer review attracted less feedback than I had hoped, but I was at any rate encouraged to move on here to FAC. TompaDompa (talk) 04:06, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I have left messages at the user talk pages of the participants of WP:Articles for deletion/George Griffith, alerting them to this FAC and (neutrally) requesting their input here. TompaDompa (talk) 08:59, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto the editor who reviewed the article at WP:GAN. TompaDompa (talk) 16:23, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review edit

  • File:George_Griffith.jpg: if the author is unknown, how do we know they died over 70 years ago?
    • I suppose we'll have to ask Artem.G who uploaded the image. I'll note that the only credited illustrator at the source is Harold H. Piffard who died in 1939, and who is explicitly given as the illustrator of two illustrations inside the book (but not explicitly this one). TompaDompa (talk) 05:50, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • If we consider the author to be unknown, this is of course a case of {{PD-UK-unknown}} as it was published in the UK in 1901. TompaDompa (talk) 06:16, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Sir_Arthur_Pearson.jpg: as this is hosted on Commons, it needs a tag for status in country of origin. Ditto File:Southern_Africa_1890s_Political.jpg
    • Done. TompaDompa (talk) 05:50, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Per the UK tag on the latter, "please specify in the image description the research you have carried out to find who the author was". Nikkimaria (talk) 05:53, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • As the description says, the book in which it was published does not state the author of the map. One may suspect that it was James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce (1838–1922) who was the author of the book and wrote "I have to thank Sir Donald Currie and Messrs. A.S. and G.G. Brown for the permission kindly given me to use the maps in the excellent "Guide to South Africa" (published by the Castle Mail Packets Company) in the preparation of the three maps contained in this volume", but it is not clear whether he created the finished map(s) himself or had someone else do it for him. If you think that quote is sufficient evidence to conclude Bryce is the author of the map(s), we can replace the UK tag with Template:PD-old-100 (I think that would be the right one?). TompaDompa (talk) 06:13, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:H.G._Wells_by_Beresford_(cropped).jpg: when and where was this first published? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:19, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Unclear. The National Portrait Gallery, London only states that the photograph is from 1920 and that they purchased it in 1939. An educated guess would be "in the UK, no later than 1939". TompaDompa (talk) 05:50, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Any evidence it was published before the NPG acquisition? Nikkimaria (talk) 05:53, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • Not that I have been able to find (not that it's particularly easy to find information about its publication history). One would of course expect a professional photographer like George Charles Beresford (1864–1938) to have published a portrait like this during his lifetime, but I haven't been able to track it down. TompaDompa (talk) 06:13, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria, what do you think? TompaDompa (talk) 21:21, 30 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On File:George_Griffith.jpg, if we consider the author to be unknown, the tagging will need to be changed, and the proposed tag requires the addition of evidence to the description page. For File:H.G._Wells_by_Beresford_(cropped).jpg, if no publication can be demonstrated the tagging will also need to be changed. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:03, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Alright. I changed the tagging and added evidence for File:George_Griffith.jpg. For File:H.G._Wells_by_Beresford_(cropped).jpg, I gather that the issue is whether it is in the public domain in the US (if I understand UK copyright law correctly, it's in the public domain there as more than 70 years have passed since the death of Beresford)? I'm not entirely sure quite how to resolve that, to be honest. It's also not crucial to have an image of Wells here, so I commented it out for now. It would of course be good to get this resolved as File:H.G. Wells by Beresford.jpg (from which this was cropped) is used rather heavily on various projects, but this is outside of my area of expertise. TompaDompa (talk) 15:25, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria, anything else? TompaDompa (talk) 08:05, 12 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:16, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Mike Christie edit

Support. I had my say at the peer review and have just read through and found nothing to add. You might consider adding a mention of Griffith to this, but that's not an issue for this article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:54, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. I have done so. TompaDompa (talk) 14:33, 26 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support Excellent article and I fully support it being promoted to featured article. As a side note, I can think of no other article on Wikipedia that in less than a year went from an AfD to being considered for FA status. Very well done!--SouthernNights (talk) 13:23, 17 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Support As the one who AfD'd this back in May, I had never heard of Griffith and I thought I knew my Victorian authors! I join the rest of you in commending TompaDompa (though I do wish he'd start a proper account already) and supporting this article's promotion. Just Another Cringy Username (talk) 06:37, 18 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Source review edit

Spot-check upon request. I don't think this article uses pagenumbers consistently - some SFE citations include page numbers in rp templates and others don't. Some inconsistencies in usage of OCLC and ISSN, and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction lacks many identifiers. Is Don D'Ammassa's book the same as this encyclopedia of science fiction? What makes victoriansecrets a good publisher? What sets the works under Further reading apart from the sources used in the article? I see that the citations include many prominent authors and publishers. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:39, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • None of the SFE (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction) citations have page numbers, as it's the online edition. That's also why there is no ISBN or similar for those citations. Don D'Ammassa's 2005 Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is a different book. I removed all OCLC uses for consistency, as well as the single instance of an ISSN where there was also an ISBN. Victorian Secrets is a publishing house specializing in Victorian-era authors, and here used for a biographical detail on one of them. The difference between the "Further reading" sources and the ones cited in the article is really just whether I've cited them inline or not, which to some extent depends on the order in which I happened to come across them. TompaDompa (talk) 12:37, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Eddie edit

  • I'll try to have a read through sometime this week. Eddie891 Talk Work 17:51, 2 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Owing to the family's financial situation" Do we know from prior content what the family's financial situation was? I feel like this holds the implication that the reader knows what their situation was, but it hasn't been state
  • "Following the death of his father in January 1872, he studied at a private school in Southport." might be helpful to add the level/age he entered school at here
  • "He left Worthing to study at a university in Germany, returning a year later to teach at Brighton." It's not clear when he left, so "a year later" is not super helpful. Also, Where did he teach in Brighton?
    • The sources don't specify beyond "Brighton". "A year later" is intended to clarify the duration of time he was in Germany rather than the point in time (which the sources also do not provide). TompaDompa (talk) 21:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "writing for local papers among others" among others... papers? Were there any national publications then of note?
    • Some of the sources mention writing for an American newspaper and Stableford says that he "apparently did some writing for the freemasons". TompaDompa (talk) 21:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He quickly rose through the ranks to become the magazine's editor, and eventually took over as owner." Do you have the name of the paper?
  • " opting instead to represent himself" Represent himself or the paper? Who was the subject of the suit?
    • Good catch. Moskowitz says that he "defended himself in court" while Ellis says that "soon the paper was inundated with libel suits"; Harris-Fain says "As editor, he was charged with libel". Unless one of the sources is mistaken, my best guess is "both" (Griffith being legally responsible for the paper, presumably). TompaDompa (talk) 21:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he likely never received payment for it." Because the company failed? I'm not quite clear on this
  • "intended as a prestige competitor to" What does "prestige competitor" mean here?
    • It was intended as a high-quality/upmarket magazine that would compete with The Strand Magazine. TompaDompa (talk) 21:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Wells also supplanted Griffith as the best-selling science fiction writer, and the one most acclaimed by the public." It's a bit strange to me that you haven't mentioned that Griffith was the best-selling science fiction author and (presumably) the most publicly acclaimed one, until he lost the role.
    • Fair enough. It is of course mentioned in the "Place in science fiction history" section (as well as the lead), but I added a brief mention in the appropriate chronological place in the body as well. TompaDompa (talk) 21:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think a portions of material from the paragraph beginning "At this time, Pearson was expanding his business" isn't directly about Griffith and could be cut without losing anything (primarily the last sentence)
    • I see your point and was myself rather surprised at how much the sources (Moskowitz in particular) went into details not strictly about Griffith, but I also understand why—it really is impossible to tell the story about Griffith's career without telling the story about Pearson's publications in the 1890s, and that requires at least some amount of background information for context. Similarly, Wells being such a ubiquitous point of comparison makes providing a bit of additional context rather enlightening in my opinion (and apparently also the sources'); for instance, I think it aids the reader's understanding of Griffith's career to note that Pearson could not afford to monopolize Wells's writing talent as he had Griffith's (otherwise the reader might very well be left wondering why Wells seems to exit the story at this point rather than displacing Griffith from Pearson's roster entirely). There is a fair amount of additional detail of this kind in the sources that I have deemed a tad too tangential to include in this article, so this already represents tightening up the scope somewhat compared to the sources. TompaDompa (talk) 23:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, if the sources place similar emphasis then I'm fine with that. Eddie891 Talk Work 13:57, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • are all the red-linked short stories notable?
    • I'm not certain that all of them are, but most of them probably are. TompaDompa (talk) 21:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "That year, he appeared in the British Who's Who," Is this the first year he was?
  • "As he had done many times before, Griffith travelled abroad, this time to Australia," When?
    • Presumably in late 1899 (or possibly very early 1900), but the sources don't say explicitly. Moskowitz states more generally that "The number of trips he made and when he made them is not clear." TompaDompa (talk) 21:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Griffith's health was failing" Suggest "by YEAR" or something
    • There's already a paragraph that starts "In 1896", one that starts "By the late 1890s", and one that starts "By 1899", so this would feel a bit too repetitive to me. The timeframe should be clear from the preceding paragraph ending in 1904 and the following sentence also mentioning 1904. TompaDompa (talk) 22:12, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "With his finances likewise deteriorating as a result of decreasing book sales after 1904" What were his finances like before this? Seems like he would be able to handle a slightly less successful career riding off of what he had previously experienced
  • We know his books were not published in America, but what about other countries?
    • I have unfortunately not found any information on this. The sources tend to focus on the UK and US to the exclusion of the rest of the world. TompaDompa (talk) 22:12, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Melchiori similarly says about Griffith's views on internationalism that "In theory he accepts it, but in practice he is very strongly pro-British"" How was this demonstrated 'in theory'?
    • Melchiori writes about the passage included in the quote box that "Why this very mixed group of international terrorists, led by a Hungarian Jew, should have worked towards this end Griffith does not explain. He simply does not seem to see any inconsistency." and suggests that "he shared with his readers a number of basic assumptions regarding [...] the dominant position of Britain". As quoted at The Angel of the Revolution#Reception, Melchiori comments that "Griffith, whose plot purports to turn the world upside down, leaves a great many things in what he considered, after all, to be their right places." My reading of this is that Melchiori finds Griffith to profess to be in favour of internationalism but not act in a manner consistent therewith. One might perhaps call it lip service. TompaDompa (talk) 22:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Griffith's failure to establish himself in the US has also been proposed as a contributing factor" If it's just the one source, suggest attributing"
    • Says Ellis: "Why has this major talent in science fiction writing not survived? According to Moskowitz [...] Another reason has been put forward that Griffith was anti-American [...]". So it seems inappropriate to attribute this to Ellis when Ellis says that others have made this point before. TompaDompa (talk) 23:22, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd generally expect a short description of who the people being credited with opinions are, rather than "Brian Stableford comments that this was a forerunner" with no explanation. Is there a thought process behind not including it?
    • I typically provide a gloss when writing articles like this, but only when I can come up with a comparatively brief one that gives the reader useful context. Thus, Sam Moskowitz is described as "Griffith's biographer" when contrasting his view against that of a Wells scholar and E. F. Bleiler is noted as writing "in the 1990 reference work Science-Fiction: The Early Years", but I settled for merely linking e.g. Darko Suvin, and since John McNabb does not at present have a Wikipedia article and I don't think it would be possible to explain why his viewpoint is relevant (for the record, in his own words he "stud[ies] the history of Palaeolithic archaeology through the lens of Victorian and Edwardian science fiction – the so called scientific romances") without going into way too much detail for an inline gloss I decided the reference itself would suffice. The reader should be able to assume that the attributed opinions are relevant or else they would presumably not be included in the first place, after all. Simply describing everyone as an "academic" (or similar) doesn't strike me as particularly helpful to the reader. TompaDompa (talk) 23:09, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's fair. Eddie891 Talk Work 13:59, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I feel a bit like there's a problem with long sentences (39 semicolons and 30 dashes, for instance, is too much imo), and some could be broken up for readability. Readability is not everything, and should not be placed ahead of accuracy. But I think some of it can be improved in this article.
    • To some extent those numbers can be explained simply by choosing certain types of punctuation rather than others (I try to keep parentheses to a minimum when they are used so heavily for years, and use dashes instead), and the semicolon count is slightly inflated by the reference list, but there are indeed a fair number of rather lengthy sentences. I have split some of them into shorter sentences—see what you think. TompaDompa (talk) 00:26, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for that, loooks better. Eddie891 Talk Work 14:00, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "Moskowitz notes that malaria (which Griffith contracted in Hong Kong, and which Peter Berresford Ellis writes at least contributed to Griffith's deteriorating condition) can have a similar clinical presentation, but nevertheless concludes—primarily from Griffith's self-description as "a waterlogged derelict"—that his early death was most likely the result of alcoholism." Is still a bit of a mouthful. Any way to break up? Eddie891 Talk Work 14:00, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Tweaked. TompaDompa (talk) 14:19, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • How did you decide what stories/books to mention in the article versus just in the bibliography?
    • I try to reflect the extent to which the sources go into detail about the works versus just name-checking or listing them. TompaDompa (talk) 23:27, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's it for a first pass. These are all just thoughts, not must-haves. Eddie891 Talk Work 19:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Eddie891: Responded to all comments above. TompaDompa (talk) 00:26, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support. A well thought-out article. Eddie891 Talk Work 14:44, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

SC edit

  • Putting down a marker for now. Will be back shortly. - SchroCat (talk) 18:56, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Overall
  • "serialized"? I see the article is tagged as BrEng, but you have "serialize", "capitalize", "fictionalized", "monopolize", "weaponized", "summarizes", "prioritization", "recognized" and "characterizes". If you want to spell in Oxford English (no problem with that, obviously), then it would be worth changing the "Use British English" tag to "Use Oxford spelling" or you'll get well-meaning people trying to change it.
    Where British and Oxford English agree, it is that there is no room for "bestseller" or "bestselling", which are best left to the North Americans: "best-seller" and "best-selling" are better suited to this article.
IB
  • I'd be tempted to strip out the Language field (we don't show nationality when it can be inferred from the other details and this feels the same). Your call, however, and I don't push the point.
  • "Period 1893–1906" This one I will push the point and you should either remove, add a citation or change so it's in line with the body.
    • I think it is in line with the body? His first novel was published in 1893 and he died in 1906. TompaDompa (talk) 16:48, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      His first book was published in 1883. - SchroCat (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Sure, but that was a poetry collection. I think it would be one of those "technically accurate but rather misleading" kind of things, much like putting the end year as 1911 when his last posthumous work was published. Oh well, I removed it. TompaDompa (talk) 18:17, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It was probably best you removed it. The body currently says "He started his writing career while at Brighton", which was in the 1880s, so it's something that would have been discussed on the talk page more than once if left in there. - SchroCat (talk) 19:00, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lead
  • "hired by C. Arthur Pearson": as you don't say what he was hired to do, maybe "hired by the publisher C. Arthur Pearson"
  • "anticipating the outbreak of the real Boer War": do we need "real"?
    • I suppose it is not strictly speaking necessary, but I think the sentence reads better with it. TompaDompa (talk) 16:56, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • It really doesn't. When I read it, I automatically thought "'real' as opposed to...?" "the real Boer War" suggests there's a fake one, or a musical version - "anticipating the outbreak of the Boer War" tells readers exactly what it is and reads far better because it doesn't trip us up. - SchroCat (talk) 17:41, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
        • There is a fake Boer War, or more accurately a fictional one—that's what Griffith's book is about. I tweaked the phrasing. TompaDompa (talk) 18:22, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
          • But the text doesn't say that's what's in the book - and "actual Boer War" is as troubling as "fake". As a reader who doesn't know anything about this bloke or his work, this still comes across as lumpy. - SchroCat (talk) 18:50, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
            • I would say that stating that the novel anticipated the real war in itself tells the reader that the novel is about a fictional version of it, but I removed it anyway. TompaDompa (talk) 23:13, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Early life
  • "moved repeatedly during his childhood due to his father's career": which one – military or ecclesiastical?
    • The latter. He was already a clergyman when Griffith was born. TompaDompa (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • It may also be the case that he was never a colonel at all—I suspect that Stableford is mistaken here. I removed the part about having been a colonel and added an invisible comment about it. TompaDompa (talk) 23:13, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "homeschooled": "educated at home" or "studied at home" would probably be better, but if you insist on keeping the word, "home-schooled" in Britain. Ditto for "homeschooling"
  • "his father had had less than £300 to his name": I did a double take on this as it reads as if his father is still alive. "his father died with less than £300" would be better
    • I think "had had" does the trick, but I rephrased it anyway. TompaDompa (talk) 18:37, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Sam Moskowitz says": who?
    • Glossed as "science fiction historian", but see my comment on the topic above. In short: I could gloss everyone as "academic", but I don't think it would be an improvement. TompaDompa (talk) 16:47, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      • But I, as a reader, have to know why I should trust his judgement. A name means nothing, neither does "academic" (if he were a professor of divinity, for example, his opinion would mean little), but now I know he is a science fiction historian, then that's someone I can take seriously. It's a short-cut to allowing your readers trust what's being explained to them, that's all. - SchroCat (talk) 17:41, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done to the start of Teaching career: more to follow. – SchroCat (talk) 16:13, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but this is becoming too much of a struggle to have some simple bits addressed that need to be addressed, and we haven't even reached the bit where he started his writing career in his early 20s. I'm not going to have the energy to continue arguing on each point, so I'm going to withdraw from this now.
I doubt it will make any difference to the passage of the article through FAC, but I am going to have to put in an oppose on this as it stands. It's not something I enjoy doing and I never do it lightly, but I have concerns about the language used in this article. A quick skim through the text shows numerous uses of Americanese (which isn't appropriate for this rather British writer), colloquial slang, loose writing and some unexplained events/developments that jar. As well as the non-actioned comments above, the following popped out – and this is on a very quick skim through, without doing a thorough review:
  • home-schooling is hyphenated and best-selling and best-seller are hyphenated, according to The New Oxford Dictionary of English
    • I'm looking at the Oxford Dictionary of English included on my digital device, and it does not have the hyphens. Odd. Added the hyphens, at any rate. TompaDompa (talk) 13:00, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • the definite article is needed in multiple places to avoid false titles
  • "studied nights": Americanism
  • Brighton... He then took a job teaching at Bolton Grammar School" Bolton is a city at the other end of the country from Brighton, and the move from one to the other is fudged over too much
    • The sources provide no details about this. They say that he worked at one place and then the other. TompaDompa (talk) 13:00, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "At Bolton": Either "At Bolton Grammar School" of "In Bolton", but not "At Bolton"
  • "promptly quit": quit is too slangy
  • "working as a journalist at a paper there": "there" is poor
  • "rose through the ranks": no, he was promoted – he wasn't in the services and didn't rise through any ranks
  • "took over as owner": glossed over too much – did he buy out the previous owner?
    • The source unfortunately does not go into details about this, only stating that "Eventually the owner turned it over to him". TompaDompa (talk) 13:00, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Griffith was highly politically active, advocating for socialism and secularism": is secularism a political cause?
  • "hiring an attorney": Americanism. In the UK you engage a solicitor or lawyer

That's all in the part down to Early career on a very quick read. Sorry, but I don't think that this strikes the right tone or uses the right language, although I'm sure this will go through with the supports you already have here. – SchroCat (talk) 09:07, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry to hear that, but thanks for your feedback anyway. I don't speak (or write) either British or American English and may unwittingly use phrases that come off as more American, but I don't mind making the text more British (although I frankly find the requirement to apply a particular variety a bit silly—the point of MOS:ENGVAR as I see it is to avoid edit wars from one variety to another). I've addressed your comments above. I understand what you mean about unexplained events and developments—this is largely a consequence of being limited to details provided by the sources and as such is to some extent unavoidable. TompaDompa (talk) 13:00, 12 January 2024 (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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