Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Irish Thoroughbred/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 SandyGeorgia 21:48, 11 February 2010 [1].

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Irish Thoroughbred

Nominator(s): Karanacs (talk) 21:06, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Irish Thoroughbred/archive1

Disclaimer for Ealdgyth: This article has very little to do with horses. It also has nothing to do with my normal topic area, Texas, or battles (except the kind that end with kissing) or wife selling (although there are some wife-aquiring shenanigans). This article actually covers the first novel written by Nora Roberts, who can apparently write a New York Times bestseller in about the time it takes me to pick out a new pair of shoes. The article is fairly short, and I was actually surprised to be able to find this much information about it. The book in question is a romance novel, and generally these receive very little critical attention. On top of that, the book was originally published in the 1980s, when romance was even more widely ignored, and it was intended to only be available for purchase for 30 days. In general, if the info is not in this article, it is probably not available. This is the first romance novel to be presented at FAC and it is my first attempt at writing an article on a book, so while I'm confident it meets the standards, I appreciate any feedback on further improving it. Karanacs (talk) 21:07, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comments
  • One dab link, which I fixed. No dead external links.
  • Alt text for the cover image is a bit too concise; it should tell what is in the image. Alt text good
  • Images look OK; first is fair use with standard rationale for covers; second is CC-BY-SA and appears appropriately licensed and described.
• Ucucha 21:12, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Good gracious, you're fast. I think I might have been in the process of rewriting the alt text when you posted. It should be fairly descriptive right now. Karanacs (talk) 21:17, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, looks good now.

Sources are reliable and consistently formatted. Perhaps I'll review the contents later—though that'll probably take me longer than five minutes! Ucucha 21:27, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support Comments Good article that, although short, appears to cover the subject adequately. I was unable to find more substantive sources. Two small points to be cleared up:
  • Any reason you're using Roberts' but Travis's?
  • The first paragraph of "Genre" contains some rather short sentences.
• Ucucha 04:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
  • Thanks very much for taking the time to do a full review. I've polished the first paragraph of Genre, and I've modified all the Roberts' to Roberts's. I remember questioning myself on which version to use and never went back to fix it. Thank you for catching it! Karanacs (talk) 20:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
    • Great, I'm happy to support now. Ucucha 21:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support small but (almost) perfectly formed. Three tiny, tiny queries

• I assume there's nothing to link Silhouette Books to?
• It's Simon & Schuster with the ampersand, not Simon and Schuster - at least that's what their website (and the Wikipedia article) say
• could CA and PA be written in full in the the Regis and Snodgrass sources?

I'll probably deprive myself of the pleasure of reading the novel, but good luck, Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks very much, Jim. If you actually read this book, my opinion of you will jump even higher - I know very few men who admit to reading romance novels (and this is really not a very good one). I've fixed Simon & Schuster. There's nothing yet to link Silhouette Books to. It's on my list of articles to write. In my experience with the MLA, publication state is always abbreviated when it is provided, so I did not change that. I did note, however, that I'd forgotten the state on one and had misformatted one ISBN, so I've fixed those. Thanks for prompting me to take that much closer look! Karanacs (talk) 20:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

• Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. (Disclosure, I do not read Nora Roberts, but boy, my mother does. She does agree, this is not one of her better ones.) Ealdgyth - Talk 19:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Support Comments for the time being with regard to the prose:

• I can't understand why "multiple" is usurping "many" is this and many other FACs that I have reviewed.
• In the Lead we are told that the protagonists were adversaries, but the sentence reads like we are expected to already know this. I might just be me, but I think a phrase or sentence is missing.
• I am not sure that "loosened its criteria slightly" is FA quality prose. Can criteria be loosened, can they be tightened? I am stuck for a better word but how about "relaxed"?
• I think "the general parameters that define its line" is a bit ugly. Would "genre" be of more useful here?
• Now, I'm British so this is difficult for me to talk about; with regard to sexual intercourse, I find the word "related" a little odd as in "sexual intercourse is only related within the bounds of marriage". Does this mean "takes place", "described", or "happens"?
• Again this might just be me but I think "ethnic" has had its day. It is such a tired, over-used word that's beginning to lose it's meaning. On this side of the pond it is often used out of misplaced political correctness instead of "foreign" or "black". I think in this context it just means "Irish".
• This sentence needs help, "This plotline of an impoverished Irishwoman's surprise at the wealth of America essentially reframed the Irish immigration to the United States of the 19th century." The meaning does not come over well, particularly "reframed".
• OK, I am scared of Tony, just like many others and I have found one of pet hates. "Dee was trapped within a patriarchal culture, with her uncle and prospective husband arranging her future for her." Here we have a fused participle, which Tony calls noun plus -ing. If the meaning is crystal clear, I don't object to the usage; but they can be ugly. A possible solution is, "Dee was trapped within a patriarchal culture in which her prospective husband arranged her future". (The "for her" is redundant).
• Lastly here, "In this novel, Roberts also included the motif of jealousy." I think in this novel is redundant.

I look forward to reaching a consensus on these somewhat trivial issues and adding my support for this candidate. Best wishes. Graham Colm ^Talk 11:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Graham, for your very helpful comments, and my apologies for not working on them until today (I took the weekend off). I've made the following corrections

• Added a sentence to the lead to make the info about their relationship transformation make more sense
• changed "loosened" to "relaxed"
• changed "related" to "described"
• Some nice editor fixed the noun plusing  :)
• rem redundant "in this novel"

I did not change the following -

• "the general parameters that define its line" - The genre is actually romance novel, with subgenre category romance. Within category romances, each publishing imprint has its own rules, the "general parameters", as I called them. These don't really make up a subgenre but are really publication guidelines/criteria. "Genre" is not a completely accurate term, and I'm wary of using "publication guidelines", because that could be interpreted as whether or not the manuscript must be double-spaced, etc. I'm open to other possibilities, but haven't thought of any good ones yet.
• I left "ethnic". I could substitute "exotic", but that seemed really funny, to me, in relation to Irish. I'm also not sure if that is the appropriate connotation - it's not that the places and events were unusual, just that the people/attitudes were atypical.
• I'm a little surprised to see a question over "reframed" - I thought it was fairly common for that word to be used to mean that one is saying something in a different way, or presenting ideas in a new manner. Perhaps that is just in American English? I've thought of "evoked", but that doesn't seem quite right. I may not be thinking out of the box enough, but I'm having trouble figuring out another way to get the message across without making the sentence much longer.

Thanks again! Karanacs (talk) 18:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm happy with reframed now because I can't think of a better way of saying "redefined from a fresh perspective". Similarly, I see what you mean about "general parameters" and again I'm stuck for a better expression. The sentence you added to the Lead improves the flow IMHO. I noticed the kind editor's fix wrt the fused participle and redundancies. I can live with "ethnic", since it is only used once, but I still don't like the word. As I said earlier, I think my issues were relatively trivial, but I hope they were useful. I am pleased to add my support for this FAC, but I am becoming a little worried about Malleus :-) Graham. Graham Colm (talk) 18:54, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You're worried duckie, my wife is distraught! :lol: --Malleus Fatuorum 19:22, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Support. This not the kind of novel that I would ever be likely to read, so this article is mercifully short. My reading prejudices don't mean that this isn't a subject worthy of this kind of attention though. I do have one small issue to raise. The article isn't consistent about whether Harlequin is singular or plural: "Harlequin loosened its criteria slightly ..." and "Harlequin was unwilling to further expose themselves to risk". --Malleus Fatuorum 20:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Malleus - you are now reviewing two romance novels! Nice to see you are so confident in your masculinity ;) I fixed the pronoun issue. Karanacs (talk) 18:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

You wouldn't find that so strange if you met me in real life Karanacs. I have testosterone oozing out of my pores, although in a refined English way, like Alan Rickman when he played the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. :lol: --Malleus Fatuorum 18:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Provisional support – I'm another one who is not planning on reading this one, especially not with the arrival of this in my mailbox today. Ironically, I decided to review this article and found that it was very good, as I might expect a Karanacs article to be. The one fault I found was something Graham noted earlier—the presence of the noun+ing. I saw several of them in the article, most notably a couple in the themes section (look for "with"s). The rest of it looks fine, and I'm satisfied that this meets FA criteria in general. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 21:28, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but as I said earlier, I don't object strongly to fused participles as long as the meaning is clear and the prose is not ugly. The remaining possible ones are: " with one editor explaining that (quote) they already had their American writer (end quote)", "with jobs including governess or secretary" and "with Roberts explaining". I offer, "and one editor's explanation was that...", "with jobs that included.." and "as Roberts has explained". Graham Colm (talk) 22:09, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm now even more seriously amused - I never expected our resident sports guru to review this one. (If it helps, I read these during halftime of college football games.) Thanks, Graham, for pointing out my other noun-plusing faux pas - this is a writing fault I need to work on. I think I've fixed all these now. Thanks to both of you! Karanacs (talk) 18:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Support easy read (just like Roberts, whose work I will admit to having read). Two little points:

• emdashes in publication section -- remove spaces
• "After displaying a talent for relating to animals" -- a little bulky. Needs a tweak.

Roberts is an extremly popular and prolific author; this will be an excellent article for main page and nice addition to Wikipedia. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 22:44, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Truthkeeper, for the review. The publication section uses endashes instead of em, which is why I added the spaces (last I looked, spaced endashes were allowed, but if the MOS has changed I'll happily fix them). I've reworded the last to Dee's love for animals is evident, and she is soon..., as I think that gives enough understanding in a slightly easier-to-read wording. Karanacs (talk) 18:10, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I thought they might be endashes after all. Sorry about that. Blame it on bad eyes! Truthkeeper88 (talk) 19:01, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.