Talk:Idries Shah/GA1

GA Review

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Hi, I will be reviewing your article for GA and will be posting review comments on this page. First, I can tell that you have put a great deal of hard work into the article and overall is seems very good. However, there are some problems with it.

• Per WP:LEAD the lead needs to be longer and be a summary of the entire article. That is, in the lead you highlight the important parts of the article, summarizing the sections.
• The article badly needs more section subheadings. The sections are too long not to be broken down further. I was trying to find a biography to give you and idea of what I mean. All I can think of at the moment is Frank Zappa, just as an example of sections, as I know it is on an entirely different topic! Notice how the large sections are broken down into readable subsection chunks.
• "Notes" should come before "References" and "Bibliography". If "References" refers to the notes, then it should come next. And the "Bibligraphy" should be last, if it is like "Further reading"
• The prose needs to be simplified Example: "Like Shah's other books on the topic, The Sufis was conspicuous for eschewing terminology that might have identified his interpretation of Sufism with traditional Islam" - the word "eschewing" should be changed to "avoiding" or another simple word.

I will be adding more comments as we go along. —Mattisse (Talk) 22:54, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep, those are obvious shortcomings (now that you point them out ;-) ). I've made a start on addressing them. I'm not sure how to handle the Bibliography; as it only lists Shah's own works, it feels like it should be part of what comes before the Notes and References; but I've moved it below the References for the mo. The References btw are the major works cited. Cheers, Jayen466 23:33, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

If it is "Works" or "Publications" by the subject of the article, then you are right about where the "Bibliography goes. See WP:Layout. —Mattisse (Talk) 23:45, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - Also I suggest delinking of the autoformatted dates per Overlinking and underlinking and assessing all links for relevance. Generally, the standard is to link only once to a specific article, unless there is a specific reason to do it more than once. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:05, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
• Don't know if I would consider Robert Ornstein an "intellectual". Maybe, "number of Western writers" or some other word. Maybe "thinkers"? —Mattisse (Talk) 01:47, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I've made it "thinkers". I could have sworn that was in Westerlund, but it seems it was actually legacy wording from ages ago ... some of the sources do comment on his writings having held particular appeal for "intellectuals", but upon rechecking, none of the sources cited refer to Ornstein and Lessing, specifically, as intellectuals. Jayen466 03:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
• If we reckon that this is a RS, we could mention his professorships. The information is taken from the Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, by the Gale Group, Inc., who publish useful (and very expensive) biographical dictionaries. Unfortunately, the relevant volume/edition is not available for preview in amazon or google books to double-check the details. Jayen466 03:33, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think unattributed material from Answers.com is considered a reliable source but you could ask at the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Maybe someone who has access to those sources could check it for you. Also, there aren't other mentions of Idries Shah's professorships?

The material is attributed, with publication data given here. Answers.com claims, "Answers.com's collection of over four million answers is drawn from over 180 titles from brand-name publishers." But I'll look if I can find further info on the arrangement between Gale and answers.com, and may bring it up on RS/N. The Argentinian professorship I haven't seen any other reference to. I've seen a scanned newspaper article (cited in the article) saying that he lectured in Geneva. The official site, http://www.idriesshah.com, mentions that he was a visiting professor there, but that is self-published. There is also a book of his, The Elephant in the Dark, which states that it is based on a Geneva University lecture series. Another book, Neglected Aspects of Sufi Study, states it is based on lectures given at the New School for Social Research, New York, and the University of California, San Francisco. Will keep looking. Cheers, Jayen466 14:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Excuse my intervening. Tahir Shah (Idries Shah's son) tells me in a self-published email that "IS was a visiting guest professor at the University of Geneva in 1972/3. This was announced in the Court Circular of The (London) Times on 18th may 1972, page 21, col. C." EricT (talk) 14:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Try google book search on Idries Shah + Uni of Geneva. Any use? Good work! EricT (talk) 14:58, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Eric, one of these may help. The India Who's Who mentioned that he was a Professor ad honorem, but did not say where. It only has snippet view. [1] Jayen466 15:10, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Ornstein was a psychologist at the University of San Francisco (or another academic institution) in the 1960s and became involved in studies in biofeedback and other mind-brain connections. He then went on to become well known, writing books etc. Lessing was a highly respected writer of fiction and a political activist. "Intellectual" implies someone who relies almost entirely on the intellect. —Mattisse (Talk) 13:27, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Okeydoke. I am not attached to the word there. Jayen466 14:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Legacy - I think that section should go last. See Frank Zappa. —Mattisse (Talk) 15:01, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Okeydoke. (Btw, I like Zappa.) ;-) Jayen466 15:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment - Just looking at the article as a whole:

I think the lead is still too short per WP:LEAD.

You need to go through a look at paragraph length. Too many short ones makes choppiness. Too many big blocks of text are hard for readers to read. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I'll look at this tomorrow. Jayen466 01:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Paras restructured. Lede rewritten and expanded (may still need a few tweaks). Jayen466 11:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Question - What is the reference: "ASIN BOOO7J1UEE"? —Mattisse (Talk) 21:07, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

• I believe an editor inserted the ASIN number of the Gerald Gardner book there. See [2]. The ASIN number is an internal amazon order no. that amazon.com uses if a book does not have an ISBN number. I guess the reference should be expanded using the cite book template. I can get onto that. Jayen466 22:11, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
•  Done Jayen466 22:15, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Comment - Look, I believe in the person you are writing about. I think this is a worth while article and deserves to be a GA ultimately. However, there is a problem with your references:

• Ref 6 goes to the French wikipedia: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Marin_(homme_politique)
• You need to use Template:Cite journal for all journal articles, e.g. Ref 2 and 3
• Ref 10 looks like a blog - is it a reliable source? http://www.thewica.co.uk/Elders.htm#jack
• I haven't determined why your references are out of sequence: e.g. 25, 26, 4, 5, 27, 28
• Ref 49, do you have more information on what issue of Psychology Today & preferable page numbers?
• Ref 5, the James Moore book, do you mean Islamic Thought in the Twentieth Century (The Institute of Ismaili Studies) (Paperback) ISBN =1850437513 which (according to amazon.com) has three references to Shah. [3]

Some of your references look fine, but some do not. And you have to have them formatted correctly. I will try to help you. You know about Citations of generic sources templates? —Mattisse (Talk) 23:17, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I will have a look at the references. Most, if not all of the problematic ones you mention predate my work on this article; a couple of them I have not as yet been able to verify myself (the Psychology Today article is a case in point). I know I can replace the thewica.co.uk reference; there are at least half a dozen books that mention Shah's authorship of the book. I'll let you know once I've done what I can.

I am familiar with WP:CIT; but I confess that sometimes I am not sure which one – cite web, cite journal, cite news etc. – is the right one to use (like a science magazine – is that journal or news?). I've worked with harvnb in another article, so could use that. Any guidance would indeed be appreciated. Thanks, Jayen466 00:45, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Reference 5 is a journal article by Moore. It appeared in at least two magazines: Telos and Religion Today. The copy I have worked from is the online copy linked to in the ref. Moore himself links to this copy from his website. And the paper is indeed listed in the book whose amazon page you linked to, no. 52 in the bibliography on page 127. Jayen466 00:51, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

As for ref 6: An earlier editor (Lunarian (talk · contribs), I think) wished to point out that Louis Marin, a notable French anthropologist (on whom we don't yet have an article in English WP) wrote the foreword to the book; perhaps that can also be done in the text proper, if we think it is important to report it (Marin appears to be somewhat less notable in the English-speaking world). Jayen466 01:04, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

The out-of-order-ness of the refs is, I think, because a number of refs are named and reused at various points throughout the article. When they recur, they recur with the number they were assigned on their first occurrence. I don't think it can be helped. Jayen466 01:08, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think named references accounts for the out-of-order-ness of the refs. I have never seen it before. Named references order themselves according to when they are first mentioned. And it doesn't matter if the first reference is just the name (without the citation) as long as the complete citation is in the article somewhere. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:29, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Well, this citation thing is really a pain. A journal usually means something like the Journal of Behavioral Psychology, etc, whereas a magazine is not usually considered a journal. Looking at the Citation templates (which you need to become familiar with if you are going to write many articles), it looks like if you are using the cite xxx format (which you seem to be) then {{cite news}} seems the closest to a magazine. I am guessing because the {{citation}} template has one for "journal (or periodical)" and another for "newspaper (or magazine, journal, periodical)". However, the cite xxx format has {{cite journal}} and {{cite news}} that seem to cover those areas. Some of it is just arbitrary and some comes with experience. There are various tools you can use like [4] in general, and [5] for journals. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Re the out-of-order problem, I am not sure now I understand. Could you point me to a paragraph where the problem is evident? Jayen466 13:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Mattisse, could you have a look at reference 2? I have now included the para of historical narrative that was formerly housed in a separate ref in reference 2, since it partly draws on this publication. However, I don't have access to the other sources the text mentions, and parts of it (e.g. the Chishti connection), while interesting, seem to stray into OR territory. On balance, taking a conservative approach, I think I would be in favour of deleting this text, and just let the journal reference stand on its own. What do you think? Jayen466 14:09, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Just let the journal reference stand on its own. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks for the copyedits, Mattisse. The editor who inserted the reference to the Psychology Today article seems to have found it on this website, which gives the full text.
• I've checked on questia.com: it does not feature that 1975 issue of Psychology Today, nor does there seem to be an archive going that far back on the magazine's website. Nothing in newspaperarchive.org. I can see if I can get into our public lending library one of these days, but I think it's a long shot, given the article's age. Cheers, Jayen466 01:05, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

• I think you have enough legitimate sources that you don't have to use questionable ones. Just reword or remove a few things if necessary. The article is very interesting as is Shah and the lingering question of his legitimacy. I am surprised that there isn't more available, but I guess he is out of fashion now.
  • What does this sentence mean: "and how the available evidence documenting this has as yet had little impact on responses to events as they occur"?
  • Also, when you have your references completed, you can go through the article and delete and fields in the templates that are unlikely ever to be used, and compact the article. I will do it if you want, when you are ready. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:44, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

• • • The original source can be viewed here. The thought expressed, as I understand it, is that looking back at history, one can often see that what was hailed as a great event at the time can with the benefit of hindsight sometimes be seen to have started off a chain of events with an unfavourable outcome; likewise, what seemed like misfortune at the time can in due course be seen as the beginning of something good. Yet as the event occurs, people feel either all elated or all dejected, and do not learn from previous experience. We'll obviously need to rewrite this slightly if it's not easily understandable as it is. Jayen466 14:10, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
      • I've had a go at rewording the sentence. Jayen466 18:03, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
    • I've gone through the text and converted the outstanding refs, and have also deleted the empty fields. I am hoping to get a page number for the Psychology Today article from a friend of Eric's, who may still have a copy of the magazine on his shelf (nothing in my local reference library, and it's quite a good one). Jayen466 17:18, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
    • Actually, I've found a back issue service after all: [6] I've e-mailed the lady. If you like, we can comment out the paragraph concerned, pending verification (I've taken it out for now). Jayen466 18:34, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I am very close to passing it for GA. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:44, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
• Do you have a page number for the quote on the left "Whose Beard?" That would be best, so that quote can be referenced. But I won't hold it up for that. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:16, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes. Page number added. I suppose we could create a citation for it. Jayen466 00:20, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
    • I added the ref. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Final GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): Very good b (MoS): No apparent MoS violations

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): Well referenced b (citations to reliable sources): Sources are reliable c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): Sets context b (focused): Remains focued on topic

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias: Neutral in viewpoint on a controversial topic

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

A very good job at persevering at working at the problems. I really like the article. —Mattisse (Talk) 00:38, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Mattisse. This has been a very pleasant experience. Your input has improved the article considerably. Thanks for your work. Best wishes, Jayen466 00:46, 7 November 2008 (UTC)