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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mark Satin/archive2

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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 not promoted by Ucucha 03:59, 12 December 2011 [1].


Mark Satin

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Mark Satin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Babel41 (talk) 20:24, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this biography for featured article status because I believe it now, finally and truly, meets all the FA criteria (it recently received "B-class" ratings from the Biography and Journalism projects). I first nominated it for FA status three months ago (August 11), and after some initial resistance on my part, learned to take advantage of some wonderfully detailed critiques. Last month I put it through a productive peer review, and have spent much of my spare time since then getting it ready for this moment, as you'll see if you click on its "History" page.

One reason I've stuck with it is I feel it covers underreported ground. Its subject played major roles in three noteworthy but unconventionaal political movements over five decades: Vietnam War draft dodging in the 1960s, New Age politics in the 1970s–80s, and radical centrism in the 1990s–2000s.

Note on citation style. I have retained the style I used in a 2005 revision (my original 2004 stub contained no references). It is a composite with the following major features: (1) first name before surname, as in the Bluebook; (2) all commas until the period at the end, as in the Bluebook; (3) no parentheses around dates or publishers (except around years of journals), as in the MLA Handbook; and (4) "p." or "pp." before page numbers, as is the practice of some American publishers.

Note on links in the "References" section. I have linked authors and publishers here only if they are not linked anywhere in the text or in the "Publications" section; and I have only linked authors or publishers here on first mention.

So, enjoy. - Babel41 (talk) 20:24, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nice work since last time! Nikkimaria (talk) 22:58, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your kind words, and for these very useful comments! - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent in whether you provide locations for newspaper sources
Done: Because you want me, as indicated below, to use the formal name for The New York Times (i.e., to insert the "The"), I decided to use the formal name for all 13 newspapers I've referenced. That left four without locations in their titles, and for those I placed the nane of the relevant city or region in parenthesis immediately after the papers' names every time I mentioned them in the "References" section - thus Daily Herald (suburban Chicago), The Globe and Mail (Toronto), National Post (Toronto), and The Province (Vancouver).
In order to be more thoroughly consistent, I then made sure I was using the formal names for all magazines and organizations as well. I had to change a couple - e.g., The Washington Monthly, not Washington Monthly. I saw no need to identify the home offices of of the magazines or organizations, though. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 12: is this the correct formatting wrt publisher?
Done: Your suspicion was well-founded, the APSA puts a colon after the PS (on the copyright page and on its website). So I changed it accordingly. APSA does not use a colon in the cover design, and the title of Wikipedia's page on the magazine does not use a colon either, though the first sentence of Wikipedia's article does include the colon. APSA does use the ampersand. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 37: can you explain how this source is compliant with WP:SCHOLARSHIP, specifically the point about theses?
Done: Roth's master's thesis on the draft dodgers is so good - so much better researched and less ego-driven than most of the books I've read on the subject - that after a while I stopped thinking of it as a thesis, ansd stopped thinking about MOS. Sorry!
I have now removed six of the seven references to Roth (and substituted other sources or material where necessary). The last reference, at the end of the Manual sub-section, simply uses Roth as an example of contemporary graduate-student interest in the Manual, so I assume he can remain there. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The New York Times, not New York Times
Done: Have now changed this every time it's come up in the text and references. Plus, this comment led to a substantial change in how I've cited newspapers and other periodicals; see first point above. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 67 and similar: not sure the "newspaper (Canada)" is needed
Re: "newspaper". Done: In my "References" section, I stated whether periodicals were newspapers, magazines, or journals whenever it was not obvious from the information given. Your comment plus my gradual immersion in Wikipediana makes me realize this is unneccesary (and in some close cases probably POV). So I have eliminated all 22 instances of this, including the one you cite. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re: "(Canada)". Done: This is embarrassing: Thanks to your comment, I see that I tried to identify countries for all publications from outside the U.S. And I like to think of myself as a global citizen! Sad. I have now eliminated all country references. (Anyway, nearly all the publications and publishers I cite have Wikipedia pages.) - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 77: page(s)?
Done: My error. I added pages (actually, chapter numbers) to Ferguson, and did another page check for all my references. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 80 and others: use dashes for page ranges
Done: Thanks. I re-checked every dash, and found two more hyphens ... they're dashes now. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 90 and similar: should note language rather than country
Done: There were two instances of this. I took out the countries and added the words, "____ language publication." - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done: I decided on closed en-dashes, and made sure they're between all months (and seasons) now. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again for your great help. - Babel41 (talk) 09:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Babel, avoid {{done}} and other templates on a FAC page. It slows down the loading time when all the FACs are pulled up on the same page. - Dank (push to talk) 12:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Removed tick marks, pls see WP:FAC instructions, and pls thread responses correctly to minimize size of the page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:38, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies, SandyGeorgia and Dank. I have cut back the threads and bolded the Dones. - Babel41 (talk) 22:48, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem. - Dank (push to talk) 23:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(Later.) Nikkimaria, - Please see my note at the end of Jim's comments below. - Babel41 (talk) 01:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. I've copyedited this a couple of times. It's different, but all good biographies are different, and they're a welcome addition at FAC, I think. - Dank (push to talk) 14:13, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dank, - Please see my note at the end of Jim's comments below. - Babel41 (talk) 01:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Noleander comments - I spent some time reading it, and I'm having a hard time finding any suggestions for improvement. Great article!

  • Sentence "He was not even against the draft, telling reporters he would support it for a defensive army ..." could be better. "Even" sounds too informal; and the sentence seems at odds with the rest of the article. Maybe a better wording would be "He was not entirely opposed to the draft, explaining that he would conditionally support it for ..."
  • External links: the link for "New World Alliance and New Options Correspondence Files, 1977–1992" goes to a search page result. Better would be for the link to go the actual page (after clicking on the link in the search results).
  • Tense: The tense seems to shift back and forth between present and past. Examples: "Satin presents..", "Satin devotes ..", "he moved..", "He gave a .." "proposal drew significant...". Since he is still alive, there is some justification for present tense. But my personal preference would be to be consistent throughout the article: primarily past tense, unless there is a compelling reason for present tense (e.g. stating his current opinions).
Thanks for referring me to WP:TENSE ... I was not aware of that essay. It suggests that sentences about works of fiction should use present tense, but sentences about history should use past tense. The Mark Satin material strikes me as more of the latter. Is there some WP guideline on biographies, which discusses tense? In any case, my comment is not a big deal: I'm just pointing out that switching tenses back and forth struck me as peculiar. --Noleander (talk) 16:17, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Aha, I found Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(biographies)#Tense which says that bios of living persons should be in present tense, but bios of deceased persons in past tense. Sounds good to me. --Noleander (talk) 16:20, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

End of Noleander comments. --Noleander (talk) 15:14, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review! - Dank (push to talk) 20:48, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Noleander, - Thanks for your kind words, and for your very useful comments. Please see my note at the end of Jim's comments below. - Babel41 (talk) 01:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Comments: This looks an interesting and comprehensive article. I note that it has been through FAC before, and more recently underwent an extensive peer review. However, in reading through the first few sections I identified a number of issues which I think require further attention:-

Lead

The lead's function is that of a broad outline summary of the main article, and at present I think there is too much detail, for example in the following extract: "Satin wrote the book New Age Politics, published by Dell in 1979. Despite what some see as its off-putting title, New Age Politics is widely recognized as the first, most ambitious, or most adequate attempt to construct an original political ideology out of the social movements of the post-Vietnam era. It identifies an emergent "third force" in North America pursuing such goals as simple living, decentralism, and global responsibility." For the purposes of the lead I would reduce this to: "Satin wrote New Age Politics, in which he identifies an emergent "third force" in North America, pursuing such goals as simple living, decentralism, and global responsibility." Likewise in the third paragraph, there is scope for summarisation.

Early years
  • Beware POVish phrasing. e.g. "Satin appeared to be a model citizen" and "But another side surfaced..."
  • We need a clearer picture of Satin's undergraduate career. He drops out of the University of Illinois, and is then told to leave Midwestern State University (how did he get to be there?), before we find him dropping out of State University of New York at Binghamton – again with no information as to how he came to be there. Apart from these frequent shifts, what was he supposedly studying at these places – surely that must be on record somewhere?
  • The third paragraph reads somewhat mawkishly. This is not appropriate material for an encyclopedia, though maybe for the Ladies' Home Journal
Toronto Anti-Draft Programme
  • "He added that he was "tired of" talking to the press". I don't know what this adds to the article, or why "tired of" requires quotes
  • "valorizing"? Is there a verb "to valorize"? (If there is, there shouldn't be)
  • Correcting myself! There is a verb "to valorize", but it means something completely different: "to fix and maintain an artificial price for a commodity by government action". So the word needs changing here. Brianboulton (talk) 08:48, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Instead of emphasizing the difficulties of emigration, Satin emphasized..." Repetition
  • Consecutive sentences beginning "Instead of..."
  • Over-complex sentences, e.g.: "Instead of refusing to "baby sit" Americans after they arrived, Satin made post-emigration assistance a top priority – the office soon sported comfortable furniture, a hot plate, and free food,[25] and within a few months, 200 Torontonians had opened their homes to war resisters and a job-finding service had been established". Apart from two "ands", the construction is made awkward by the use of the ndash in mid-sentence.
  • Some of the phrasing is overelaborate, e.g. "exuding indifference"
  • "He was 21 years old" at the end of the subsection looks gratuitous; what purpose is this information serving?
Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada
  • There is a tendency towards the overuse of quotation marks, especially for unremarkable terms like "useful", "detailed advice", "warm welcome", "ecourage" etc. These words or terms aren't worth putting in quotes, which should be reserved for rather more striking comments.
  • "re-envision"? Is that the word used in the source? If so, I think that is a case for using a direct quote, not just of this rather dubious word but of the context in which the source uses it.
  • What is "House of Anansi"? Publishers?

That is all I have time for at present. I will try to add comments on the rest, but it looks to me as though a little more work is necessary before this article is ready for promotion. Brianboulton (talk) 23:32, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I disagree with some of that, but I have to pick my battles ... I've got my hands full copyediting historical narratives, and much of this article isn't a historical narrative. Hopefully we'll get a bunch of reviews, and I'll be happy to accept the consensus. - Dank (push to talk) 13:02, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd prefer to have some response from the nominator. But if the article is still in such a state of flux, it probably has no business being here at FAC. It's not up to "a bunch of reviews" to lick the article into shape. Brianboulton (talk) 18:11, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note from the nominator (and principal author): I appreciate your comments about my article, and the constructive spirit behind them. They will not go unattended! Please see my note (to you and others) at the end of Jim's comments below. - Babel41 (talk) 01:51, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]


  • I agree that the lead is too detailed, book publishers, synopses etc
  • In high school, Satin appeared to be a model citizen – for example, he wrote a regular column on teenage affairs for the Moorhead newspaper.[9] But another side surfaced within months of his leaving for university.[22] — It's not my experience that people who write to newspapers are "model citizens"; quite the opposite often. The whole of the quoted section feels a bit popular biography rather than encyclopaedic
  • for refusing to sign a loyalty oath to the United States Constitution. — As a Brit, I'd welcome a link or explanation here. Is this a federal requirement, Texas, only or a maverick university? Do non-Americans take the oath too?
  • trimester — which means?
  • The night Satin arrived in Canada, he struggled to hold back tears — More Mills & Boon than encyclopaedia
  • valorizing — My dictionary says it's to do with stabilizing prices, ao I can't see what it means here. In any case, such an obscure word is best avoided
  • Throughout the article instead of is overused
  • Androgynous — needs link
  • Biblical Christians — I thought all Christians were biblical? If this means fundamentalist or literalist, perhaps a gloss or link, similarly if it's a campaigning group
  • Among Biblical Christians... I struggled with the whole of the para, particularly as the unlinked authors aren't given a nationality. Are we just talking about adverse views in the US? If so, that should be made clear. Was there no criticism from eg Sweden or Germany — it doesn't sound like the sort of book to be accepted uncritically in any country.
  • woundedness — not in my dictionary, best to avoid neologisms or obscure words
Dear Nikkimaria, Dank, Noleander, Brianbouton, and Jim: Thank you for your many thoughtful comments above.
It is clear, from reading them all together, that my article cannot be "patched up" by making a couple of individual changes here and there. Rather, the whole article needs to be adjusted to reflect what Dank refers to above as Wikipedia's "house style," as exemplified by all your comments and the sensibility behind them.
I am more than willing to do that, and I feel capable of doing it. However, it will take me longer than the couple of days I have left on the FAC page, and I probably (according to one friend, certainly!) will need to get some psychic distance on the article first. Therefore, I would like to withdraw my article from FAC consideration at this time, and re-submit it to you at a later date. I will adopt the changes you suggested, and if I can't go along with any of them I will explain why in my introduction to the FA nomination. I hope you will all choose to revisit my FA submission at that time. I will give each of you a heads-up. - Babel41 (talk) 01:51, 12 December 2011 (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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