Talk:Comets in fiction/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch

Reviewer: Geethree (talk · contribs) 22:17, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Failed "good article" nomination

This article has failed its Good article nomination. This is how the article, as of November 11, 2023, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: Fail

Few to no egregious errors, though the copy is lengthy at times and difficult to parse. I think this needs substantial copy editing. For example:

In the 1900s, a successive shift occurred wherein comets were largely replaced by other objects such as asteroids in threatening harm to Earth, though cometary impact events continued to appear in works like Jack Bechdolt's 1920 novel The Torch, where it forms part of the backstory for the post-apocalyptic setting.

This sentence is both quite long and becomes vague. What does the "it" in "it forms part of..." refer to? The antecedent is unclear. If "it" refers to "cometary impact events," then that is a subject-verb disagreement and should be corrected.

In general, the sheer number of examples also makes this difficult to work through. As an example, the "Resources" section has no real thesis or topic sentence. It's just a list of examples with no context for why these are meaningful.

This article seems to be largely the work of one editor who has done an admirable job compiling examples and references. Perhaps that editor can take a copy editing pass to provide some focus and context, or another editor can jump in to do so.

For some specific cleanup categories that I think apply, see:

• Template:Excessive examples
• Template:Specific

2. Verifiable?: N/A

I didn't see any spurious or inaccurate citations. However, as most of the citations were just plot examples, I would expect them to be accurate.

In addition, this article overwhelmingly leans on three tertiary sources that are other encylopedias (Westfahl, Langford, and Stableford). Please remember that wikipedia should be based on secondary sources, per this page:

• Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources

3. Broad in coverage?: Fail.

I think this article, in very broad strokes, includes thorough coverage of the topic (ie, there are sections for the different ways in which comets are significant in fiction). However, there is no meaningful context for those sections. A list of examples is not itself "coverage."

4. Neutral point of view?: N/A

Technically I'd call this a "pass," but I don't think this article contains enough specific claims to say one way or the other. It is almost exclusively plot examples, which, sure, are "neutral" but I don't think it's meaningful to describe an article as neutral if it lacks information relating to the history and culture of these works and WHY they are important.

5. Stable?: Pass.

Edit history looks solid, and if anything this appears to a project of one editor for the most part.

6. Images?: Pass.

This article could certainly be dolled up with more images, but there is a flavorful header illustration and nothing in the article that suffers from lack of illustration.

Closing comments: There's nothing wrong with red links per se, but this article has a lot of them. It causes me to doubt the importance of the subject considering many of the examples do not themselves have their own pages. I believe the examples could be trimmed down, focusing on the most significant examples.

In addition, I think this article is extremely over-referenced (to its detriment). The vast majority of the copy is simple plot summaries or examples (rather than explaining, for instance, the broader significance of these works), often with multiple references. Plot summaries are rarely controversial, requiring multiple references.

I would suggest reviewing other pages of "[topic] in fiction" for examples of how to provide context. For example, Venus in fiction has a section titled "Paradigm shift," which provides a historical context before providing examples of fiction that reflect that context.

Finally, I would suggest revising how much this article leans on the first 3 references (Westfahl, Langford, and Stableford). Much of this article is heavily borrowed from those encyclopedias. Wikipedia should rely on secondary sources, not repeat tertiary sources (such as other encyclopedias).

When these issues are addressed, the article can be renominated. If you feel that this review is in error, feel free to have it reassessed. Thank you for your work so far.— Geethree (talk) 23:21, 11 November 2023 (UTC)