Talk:Les Avariés/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 01:59, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:59, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Earwig finds no issues.

• File:Les Avariés 1903 cover.png has no US tag; it's not really a problem for GA as the image is indeed PD, but you might want to go ahead and add the US tag to the image file.

   Done Colin M (talk) 17:43, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

• What makes notchesblog.com a reliable source? It appears to be a blog.

  Good question. Notches describes itself (in the footer) as "peer-reviewed", and its editorial staff seem to be legitimate academics. In the alternative, even if we do consider it a self-published source, the author, Alicia Corts, probably qualifies as "an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" (per WP:SPS), based on her mini-bio at the end of the article. Colin M (talk) 17:43, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  I found work by Corts on Google Scholar, so I think she qualifies. Struck. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:15, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

• There are unsourced sentences in the "Film adaptations" section.

  I want to push back on this slightly. Which sentences do you think fall under the WP:WHEN criteria? I think I'm relatively diligent about inline citations, but one situation where I usually don't bother is when giving basic information about some wikilinked topic, such that the reader can find more (verifiable) details by following the wikilink. And I think that applies to sentences like "A British silent film adaptation was released in 1919." Colin M (talk) 18:13, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  I think it would be better to cite these. I get what you're saying about these being easy for a reader to find out more about by clicking on a wikilink, but even if you discount the fact that Wikipedia is not an RS for our purposes, that still assumes there's an adequate source in the linked article, which may not be the case. It's also very difficult to draw an exact boundary between what's a controversial fact (requiring citation) and what is not. As a result I think it's generally better to cite everything -- after all, if a fact is very obvious it's usually also very easy to cite. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:28, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

  This section is now fully cited. I have to admit, this actually did end up being a productive exercise, as I ended up finding some new details along the way, and identified and removed a claim that was not supported by sources and possibly incorrect. Colin M (talk) 21:24, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

• At several places in the article there are short paragraphs of only one or two sentences; can these be combined where possible?

  I realize that single sentence paragraphs may look weird, but I still prefer it to the alternative of fusing them with an adjoining paragraph on a different topic to create a chimera. I did some rearranging in the "Composition and publication history" section to eliminate one single-sentence paragraph, but I think the others are harder to get rid of. The "Film adaptations" section has the most of these, but I think it really is much easier for the reader to navigate and comprehend the content at a glance if each adaptation is covered in a separate paragraph. I could try using a bulleted list instead if you think that would be better? Colin M (talk) 18:25, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  No -- we disagree about this, but it's outside the range of the GA criteria, so I don't insist. One suggestion, though: recasting the sentences so that they're no longer simple unrelated declaratives might help. For example, how about "Damaged Goods was the subject of a number of film adaptations. A Victim of Sin (advertised as A Victim of Sin OR Damaged Goods), was produced in 1913; this was not an authorized adaptation but had a plot which closely mirrored Brieux's play, and was widely regarded as having based on it. The first official adaptation was Damaged Goods (1914), an American silent film in which Richard Bennett reprised the role of George Dupont which he played in the US stage production. It has been credited with sparking a fad of sensational "sexual hygiene" films (sometimes colloquially referred to as "clap operas"), which were seen as precursors to the exploitation film genre. These were followed in 1919 by a British silent film adaptation, and by two more films based on the play in the 1930s: Damaged Lives, a Canadian/American exploitation film released in 1933, and Damaged Goods (1937), an American picture based on Upton Sinclair's novelization of the play, but modernized and set in the United States." This could no doubt be improved, but it assembles the information into a reasonably natural narrative flow. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:28, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

• The article seems a bit short. I had a look for other sources and found these:
  • [1] about the Canadian reception of the play

    Nice find. Added a section on the 1905 Montreal production using this source. Colin M (talk) 19:20, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  • [2] which is about the relationship between Brieux and Shaw, and cites "See the Ph.D. dissertation by Richard Frederick Mundell, "Shaw and Brieux: A Literary Relationship," 2 vols. University of Michigan, 1971, 548 pp. It contains a useful appendix, "A Checklist of Brieux's Plays" (522-29), with dates of French and English production and translation into English, as well as a history of productions of early Brieux plays in London" which looks like it would be worth getting hold of. It appears to be available on ProQuest.

    Using my Wikipedia Library subscription, I'm only able to get a 24 page preview on Proquest, with the message "it looks like this particular document is not part of your library's current ProQuest subscription". It seems like this could be useful, but I'm not seeing a way to get the full doc. Which is a shame, though I don't think we need to go this deep to satisfy the broad coverage GA criterion (an unpublished dissertation is already on the borderline of acceptability as an RS). Colin M (talk) 19:59, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  There are quite a few more articles that come up on Google Scholar. GA doesn't require comprehensive coverage, as FAC does, but it does require broad coverage, and I'm concerned that there are not many sources used in the article -- in fact the "Controversy" section seems much too short.

• "The play had a significant impact on Paris intellectuals" is sourced to "it made a deep impression on Paris intellectuals"; the source's statement is vague enough that I can see you had a hard time retaining the meaning while avoiding close paraphrasing. I'm not sure it's worth keeping without some more details about the reaction of those intellectuals.

  Well spotted. I'm going to put a pin in this one while I work on the bullet above. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll find more sources that talk about the play's original reception in Paris. Colin M (talk) 18:36, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  I ended up just removing this sentence. Colin M (talk) 21:22, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

• I enjoyed the use of the word "periphrastically", which has been one of my favourite words since I encountered it in Lewis Carroll's poetry long ago, but I think it might be a bit obscure for the general reader.

  I tried substituting it with "euphemistically" instead. Do you think that's an improvement? Colin M (talk) 18:30, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

  That works. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:31, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll pause the review here, and will do spotchecks once you've responded. My main concern is whether the article is too short and fails to include material it should include. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library)

Colin M, are you planning to work on this? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:57, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: apologies, I've been offline for the last while, but I do intend to work on this now. I hope to address your comments within the next day or two, and will ping you again when I'm through. Thanks for your patience. Colin M (talk) 17:30, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: I've added a little more detail, and will try to do more digging through sources in the next day or so, but it would be helpful to hear more from you about which of the "main aspects" of the topic you feel aren't being addressed. A few points on this topic:

• Some content related to the play's controversy is covered in the "Production history" section, rather than the "Controversy" section. I thought it would be cleaner to go over the details of the reception of the play in particular locales in the former section (and its subsections).
• At the time I wrote the first draft of the article, I did what I thought was a pretty thorough search for sources. It's true that you can find plenty of Google Scholar results referring to the play which aren't cited in this article, but they tend to be obscure papers with single-digit citations, or refer to the play only in passing. I think the works which are of the highest quality and which treat the play in the most detail are pretty well accounted for here, and that it's appropriate to rely heavily on them (I'm thinking particularly of Brandt, Schaefer, and Pollack).

I'm happy to include sources like the one you found above about the Montreal production, but I think that sort of content is unambiguously not one of the "main aspects" that the GACR require addressing. As far as I can tell, that paper - which has accumulated 1 citation in 15 years, and is from what appears to be a somewhat marginal journal (I couldn't find an impact score, but the official contact is a gmail address) - is basically the only modern source that refers to the Montreal production (other than a bare passing mention in a 2005 book). Colin M (talk) 20:52, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Hi -- just a quick note to say I can get back to this either tonight or tomorrow morning; glad you saw this before I failed it. More later. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:22, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

I spent a little while searching for more sources, and I agree that there doesn't seem to be much that is missing from scholarly sources. How about contemporary newspaper reviews, particularly of the first productions? For example:

• This interview has some quotes that might be useful. I think the author is Lewis L. Lorwin.
• Background to the 1913 production
• Contemporary review by William Reedy.
• Op ed on burning Brieux's books by C. F. Aked, who I'm pretty sure is this chap, though we don't yet have an article on him.
• Theatrical news article. This includes a letter from Brieux giving details of early presentations outside Paris that I think are worth including.

These came from just the first page of results on newspapers.com for '"damaged goods" brieux' for 1913. I haven't looked at the British Newspaper Archive yet, or at later years, but given that there's some material here that seems useful (particularly the early history of presentations given by Brieux in the last item linked above) I think it would be worth looking further. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:02, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Just want to say that I've seen this and have some ideas about how the article can be expanded with contemporary sources, but it may be a few more days before I can devote the proper attention to the task. Colin M (talk) 22:59, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

No hurry, just so long as I know you're working on it. And if you think this goes beyond the "broad" criterion please do say so; I'm not expert in this field at all. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:07, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

I do, but I also don't really mind expanding the article beyond the bare minimum required by GACR. Anyways, I've done at least some expansion of most sections of the article, and added one new top-level section on "Themes". It could always be expanded further, but I'm wary of relying too much on >100 year old articles which by now sort of have the character of primary sources. I think I've also addressed the other outstanding points above, so now might be a good time for you to give this another look and let me know what you think. Colin M (talk) 21:35, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

OK -- the additions look good, and I agree it meets the "broad" criterion. I'll do spotchecks next. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:21, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Spotchecks

• FN 8 cites "The play had its public premiere on May 14, 1913, at the Fulton Theatre. It played for 66 performances, exceeding its initially planned run of 14 performances due to unexpected demand. Following its Broadway run, Bennett took the play on tour across the country, where its success continued." Verified.
• FN 10 cites "In the years following its Broadway debut, Damaged Goods was staged by a number of stock theatre companies across the United States. One of the earliest was a June 1914 production by William Fox's Academy of Music Stock Company in New York, which ran for six weeks of well-attended performances." I don't have access to this source; could you post here a quote of the text that supports this? I tried searching the Google Books copy, but it finds no instances of "damaged goods", and you give no page number to cross-check.
• FN 16 cites 'In a feature story, the New York Times described the play as having "the approval of many of our leading men and women".' Verified.

The spotcheck above is the only remaining issue; when you quote the supporting text I'll go ahead and promote this. As an aside, I did notice here that premarital health examinations as a prerequisite for marriage apparently started to become a legal requirement in some US states in 1913. The coincidence of dates makes me wonder if there was any connection to the public debate started by performance of Damaged Goods. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:38, 16 May 2023 (UTC)

Page 8 of source 10 includes this quote as part of a section on the Academy of Music Stock Company: In June 1914, he mounted a production of Eugene Brieux' Damaged Goods (1905). The controversial exposé of the ravages of venereal disease ran for six weeks to crowded houses, allowing Fox to balance his books before closing the theatre. The fact that the play was performed by "a number of stock theatre companies across the United States" is supported by the fact that the same source lists several other stock theatre productions, including on pages 33, 55, 254, and 260. These productions range in time from 1914 to 1929. The Academy of Music Stock Company production is the earliest one listed (I think that, combined with the fact that it occurred only a year after the play's US debut on Broadway, is sufficient to characterize it as "one of the earliest"). (Side note: I was able to access a digital copy of this book through an online database called "Theatre in Context" which I was able to access through my local library. You could try checking whether you have access to the same service.)

Re premarital medical exams: I'm not aware of any sources that draw any direct connection between that subject and this play (and I've done a fair bit of reading on the latter, as I actually wrote our Premarital medical examination article not that long ago). I think it's most likely that the play and the legislation have a shared cause, that being a generally growing awareness of the problem of sexually transmitted diseases, driven by progressive physicians and other members of the "sexual hygiene" movement. Colin M (talk) 19:09, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

Spotcheck looks good; passing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:58, 18 May 2023 (UTC)