Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties/archive1

Comments from Curly Turkey (addressed)

Addressed comments from Curly Turkey moved to talk per agreement with user, see diff.

• Well, fuck, I'm not a fan of having every sentence inline-sourced like this—the first five sentences of "Background" are all the same "[1]". There's certainly no rule against it, and I know that a number of editors insist on doing this (and often have good reasons for it), but I find it rather obnoxious, especially with sentences such as "Christopher M. Fairman graduated from the University of Texas at Austin" followed by "He taught history at the high-school level for nine years and received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Texas at Austin"—hardly controversial stuff, and makes the text a reader's nightmare of superscripts. On a similar note, I'd recommend looking at WP:BUNDLING if you haven't seen that before. Other than that:
  • "Fairman cites studies from social science, psychoanalysis, lexicography, linguistics, and etymology academics." I'd reword to "Fairman cites studies from academics in social science, psychoanalysis, lexicography, linguistics, and etymology." Somehow "pychoanalysis academics" doesn't ring right with me.
  • " In a 2012 article on "fuck" ": I make this "the word 'fuck'"—it's perhaps typologically clear, but imagine this read aloud or going through a screenreader—it's not clear if "fuck" here means the word "fuck" or the title of the book Fuck.
  • I'd drop "Finger (gesture)" from the "See also" list—it's relevant perhaps to the word "fuck", but not to the book (I presume, anyways—I haven't read it). You might want to reconsider some of the other links in the list in that light.
  • "Fuck (the film)" I'd change to "Fuck (2005 film)", or even better "Fuck (2005 documentary)" to make it clearer why it's on the list
  • I greatly appreciate the opportunity to write "fuck" multiple times in the same sentence in a formal setting. Please don't run out of Fuck-entitled media to write about.

———Curly Turkey (gobble) 06:21, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Reply to comments from Curly Turkey

1. Done. Removed some cites from ends of sentences, moved cites to end of series referring to that particular cite.
2. Done. Reworded sentence per helpful recommendation from Curly Turkey, above.
3. Done. Changed wording to "the word fuck" per suggestion, above.
4. Done. Removed "The finger" from See also section.
5. Done. Made this explanation a bit more specific after the link in See also section.
6. You're most welcome, and thank you, — Cirt (talk) 06:32, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. A nice, short article on a book that will probably go on my long, long "to-read" list. Curly Turkey (gobble) 06:36, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the Support -- and for the helpful comments, — Cirt (talk) 06:38, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments from DMacks (addressed)

Addressed comments from DMacks moved to talk per agreement with user, see diff.

Two quick comments about citations...

1. Following up from Curly Turkey's first-point theme about excessive citation, there are several places where some pretty simple and noncontroversiall facts are multiply cited. In the Background section, "It was published by the Cardozo Law Review in 2007.[12][13]" and "Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties was first published in 2009 in paperback by Sphinx Publishing.[15][16][17]" Each of those cites is just to a publication-database/catalog (worldcat, oclc, etc.) of those publications themselves. Better to have a single entry for the publication that contains all relevant metadata if we need a cite for the item itself.
2. Many of the journal-reference citations include organization/publisher info in addition to the journal title itself. That's a type of detail I do not usually see in academic writing or WP articles, though this topic-area is far from one I usually read.

DMacks (talk) 06:43, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments, I'll get on responding to them soon. — Cirt (talk) 06:44, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Reply to comments from DMacks

1. Done. Trimmed excessive cites, from examples noted by DMacks, above.
2. Done. Per recommendation, added relevant metadata to cite for the item itself.
3. Done. Removed organization/publisher info from the fields for journal-reference citations.

Thanks for these helpful suggestions, — Cirt (talk) 06:54, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support. I was a bit surprised at first, like John seems, below, that such a short article could be FA. But I agree that it may well say all there is to say, and it does say it well. It's actually refreshing to see one that isn't an intricately detailed tome. DMacks (talk) 09:04, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the Support - and I'm glad you found the article informative and refreshing. — Cirt (talk) 10:06, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments from Crisco 1492 (addressed)

Addressed comments from Crisco 1492moved to talk per agreement with user, see diff.

Very quick comment: MOS:IMAGES states "It is often preferable to place images of faces so that the face or eyes look toward the text.". Thus, it may be best if the portrait of Fairman is aligned to the viewer's right side of the page. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:12, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

Done. Moved image to right alignment. — Cirt (talk) 07:16, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

• University of Texas at Austin. ... University of Texas at Austin. - Any way to avoid repeating the institution's name twice in two sentences?
• That the original article was written in 2006 is not in the body of the text
• Fairman's original 2007 article - he made his article available as a working paper on the Social Science Research Network website in March 2006. - isn't this contradictory?
• The author wrote a follow-up piece in April 2007 titled "Fuck and Law Faculty Rankings".[13] Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties was first published in 2009 in paperback by Sphinx Publishing.[14] It was published in 2009 in an electronic format for the Amazon Kindle. - Very repetitive. I'd probably put the first sentence in with the paragraph above it, and then split out the last two sentences in the "reception" section (and find a way to avoid saying "2009" twice)
• Way too many sentences starting "Fairman" or "He"
• Feels like there are too few conjunctions for proper flow, but that may just be me. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:11, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Reply to comments from Crisco 1492

1. Done. Copy edited to avoid repetition of name of institution, per recommendation of Crisco 1492, above.
2. Done. Fixed wording in this sentence so it is more clear as to chronology.
3. Done. Per suggestion, above, moved one sentence to paragraph above it. Then, added the rest to start of Reception section. Copy edited to avoid use of "2009" twice there.
4. Done. Trimmed use of these terms in article.
5. Done. Added a few conjunctions for proper flow, per suggestion.

Thanks to Crisco 1492 for these helpful comments, — Cirt (talk) 06:18, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support on prose and images. Good job. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:14, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks so much for the Support - your helpful comments and suggestions are most appreciated, — Cirt (talk) 10:06, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments from Jimfbleak (addressed)

Addressed comments from Jimfbleak moved to talk per agreement with user, see diff.

• Comments having read this before it came here, it's unsurprisingly I can see nothing major to fix in this otherwise excellent article. The following are more in the nature of suggestions than deal-breakers. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:16, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

• The book was first published in 2009 by Sphinx Publishing—I wonder whether just "Sphinx" to avoid published/Publishing?
• rejected by the Kansas Law Review 25 minutes (in lead) —exact phase repeated later, perhaps "less than half an hour..." or similar here
• He taught history at the high-school level—why "the"?
• delayed writing the article until he received tenure—"tenure" is rarely used outside NAm, link or explain
• Library Journal described the book as a sincere analysis of "fuck" and attempted censorship of the word. —slightly ambiguous, suggests that the journal attempted censorship
• Seven links to Fairman in the refs on top of those in the text seems like overkill to me — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimfbleak (talk • contribs)

Thanks very much for these helpful comments, I shall get to addressing them soon, and note it back here. — Cirt (talk) 16:22, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Reply to comments from Jimfbleak

1. Done. Changed to just "Sphinx", per recommendation by Jimfbleak, above.
2. Done. Modified wording in lead to "less than half an hour...", as suggested.
3. Done. Removed "the", and copy edited this sentence a bit.
4. Done. Linked to tenure (academic).
5. Done. Copy edited this sentence to make this clear.
6. Done. Removed all links to Fairman in the refs.

Thank you, Jimfbleak, these were all most useful suggestions so I implemented all of them. — Cirt (talk) 16:48, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

No other concerns, happy with responses, changed to Support. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:16, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your Support -- most appreciated, — Cirt (talk) 17:17, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Comments from Dr. Blofeld (addressed)

Addressed comments from Dr. Blofeld moved to talk per agreement with user, see diff.

Length not an issue, this is a well-written, clean (well as much as it can be given the subject :-]) concise article. Some minor things:

• "Highly recommended. All readership levels." -I don't really think that quote sits well in the lead, saying it was well-received I think it OK. If anything the "Library Journal described the book as a sincere analysis of the word and its history of censorship" would look more encyclopedic in the lead and better describe its impact.
• "He discusses uses of the word from the 15th century onwards.[15] Fairman establishes that most current usages have connotations distinct from its denotation of sexual intercourse.[16] He writes that, rather than having sexual meaning, the word's use is most commonly associated with power.[9]" -This reads a bit repetitively, you might want to merge a sentence or rephrase.
• Pipelink Cardozo Law Review to the correct article.
• Source 3 isn't all that clear to me, I'm not sure that the quote is really needed
• Same with source 27, I don't think you need the quote in my opinion.
• No url, date or author info for ref 26?
• A bit concerned about sources 3-10, 14 and 21 purely for verification purposes. These are offline sources I gather?
• Aren't refs 18 and 19 from the same source? If so, wouldn't it be better to merge or put in note form?

♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:33, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Reply to comments from Dr. Blofeld

1. Done. Modified to wording suggested by Dr. Blofeld, above.
2. Done. Merged sentence as requested, above.
3. Done. Pipelinked the link to the correct article.
4. Done. Removed quote from cite.
5. Done. Removed quote from cite.
6. Done. Added note that this was accessed via NewsBank database archive.
7. Full citations are given for verification purposes. These were all accessed using database archives such as LexisNexis, etc.

Thank you for your helpful comments, I had no issues with any of them so I simply implemented all the recommendations directly into the article. — Cirt (talk) 18:58, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

• Support Thanks for your swift response. This is a credible, well-written article on the book. Although it might have a bit more detail on its content and analysis I think it covers what needs to be covered rather well.♦ Dr. Blofeld 19:12, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your Support -- as for the article, I exhausted research in multiple databases to find all secondary source coverage, including Westlaw, NewsBank, LexisNexis, and InfoTrac. — Cirt (talk) 19:57, 11 March 2014 (UTC)