Talk:How to Start Your Own Country (book)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:How to Start Your Own Country (book)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 20:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Dibsing. Ping if I don't get to this within a week. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

• Might be worth having some context about Strauss in the lead, if it's possible to cram it in in a small way (is he himself a micronationalist, is he a libertarian philosopher, is he just a random guy, etc)

• How does it look now?

• Looks good

• You say "first" twice in the last sentence of the lead, I think you could reword around it (and again later)

• Reworded.

• Lead is a little scant

• Expanded.

• As a note, I put in a bit about critical reception because the lead should sum up the whole article.

• "noted libertarian" reads oddly - try substituting "noted vegetarian" or "noted cross-fitter". It slightly over-eggs the pudding (not just x but a noted x!) but doesn't really add much. "known for his libertarian views" or "libertarian thinker" maybe?

• I hope "with libertarian views, …" is alright. I originally chose "noted libertarian" because I wanted to distinguish Struass from a libertarian politician!

• Gotcha, yeah, that's what I was trying with my versions. Yours is also perfectly fine :)

• The first paragraph gives us one sentence on Strauss and then zips over to defining micronations. It's slightly confusing. I might separate the sentences "Micronations are..." and "They are classified..." into their own paragraph that opens the section, then get into Strauss and his thinking - "Erwin S. Strauss is an American science fiction author and libertarian thinker who became interested in micronations because of blah blah. Interested in individual freedom..."

• Reorganised. I hope it looks alright now.

• Yup

• "Russel McDougall writes..." a) who? b) this isn't really background, it's analysis

• Reworded.

• I tweaked the sentence about the research institute to give context, and remove some redundant phrasing

• Thanks; I really like it!

• I'm not sure the details about it having a preface and an index are necessary; I don't see them in other book FAs, but I won't force you to remove them if you prefer to keep them.

• I removed the preface mention. IMO as several books I have read do not contain indexes I thought it was noteworthy in this case. I rarely read literature though so I am not really sure on this.

• I think both indexes and introductions are so common as to not merit mention unless RS are highlighting them as somehow unusual. But as I said, I won't fight you on it.

• "The second approach is done by registering a flag of convenience and declaring the ship as sovereign" - if you don't know that flags of convenience is a maritime concept, this makes no sense. Even if you do know, it could use a revision to make it clear it applies to micronations on ships and stuff - try "For micronations based on vessels, a second approach involves registering a flag of convenience but declaring the ship as sovereign", maybe? (I don't think this approach works for land-based ones, does it? Correct me if I'm wrong).

• Implemented. Yes, you are right!

• Is "vonu" a real word or one that Strauss invented? If it's real, can we link to wiktionary? If fake, can we specify?

• According to the book itself it was coined by the "vonuist" libertarian organisation Free Isles in the 1960s. Aside from sources published by the group itself I cannot find any outside usage of vonu yet, so not sure if it is noteworthy enough for Wiktionary (but I'll keep looking).

• I had a look but couldn't find anything either :( On re-read, I would maybe suggest trimming "vonu" entirely so as to avoid the having to define it in-text, as the definition of it is repetitive with the description of it. What about something like: "The fourth approach involves residing in a secluded area and avoiding interaction with authorities, without formally seceding or declaring independence."

• "avoiding unnecessary hostility to avoid persecution" duplicate word in same sentence

• Fixed.

As always, I'm open to discussion about the above points, and any suggested phrasings are just suggestions. Other than that, the article is reasonably well-developed - a little on the shorter side but it seems the sourcing has been reasonably exhausted (Just to cover bases - did you check TWL?). Cover photo is correctly NFCC, no other images. No CV or close para, no Earwig issues. Spot checks of sources I could access did not uncover any issues. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos: Thanks for the review! I have replied to all your comments. Sorry for the wait; as you know I have a FAC which is rather time-consuming. I did check TWL which is how I found the newspaper sources (on newspapers.com); unfortunately there does not appear to be a lot of coverage of this work. ツ LunaEatsTuna (💬)— 04:21, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

No worries, you know I have to ask :) I've left comments above. A few things need responded to, but otherwise this is pretty much there. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:38, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos: Thanks, I appreciate your edits and suggestions! Should be alright now :) ツ LunaEatsTuna (💬)— 17:40, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks good, we're a pass! Great work in this area. I say this a lot, but I wonder if you could get a GT? You could do List of books about micronationalism or something for your top-level article. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:50, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.