Talk:Moon in science fiction/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 12:21, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Comments

First of all, this is a very welcome article on a fascinating and major topic. It is a promising start and it is clear and well-written.

However, it barely begins to scratch the surface of the topic; the List of appearances of the Moon in fiction, which was the state of the article before September 2021, makes it clear that there is a wealth of primary material, and of suitable illustrations on Commons, to choose from. On that score, the current article clearly does not meet GA criterion 3a, breadth of coverage; the existing text would be very close to what one might expect in the lead section of the article, with far more detail, at least a few of the more memorable quotations (Tolkien's The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late springs to mind), and a modest selection of the many fine illustrations and pieces of artwork on the subject would be necessary to all a reviewer to say in all honesty that the article "covers the main points".

That said, I note that the Mercury in fiction article was recently summarily failed. I would not wish to put people off from writing interesting articles, nor indeed boldly restructuring them when necessary, so I will suggest that we could take this GAN slowly, building up the article to provide a reasonable coverage of the topic.

On the article's structure, the current headings are essentially real-world historical, and in consequence treating the fictionalised form of the Moon as a science-fiction question. But history is only one approach to a topic in fiction; another important division is by (art)form, with possible headings such as folktale, fairytale, poetry, play, dance (and ballet), novel, film. Clearly each of these is significant in this domain, with many examples available, and with each artform making its own distinctive use of the Moon. The article needs to be expanded to cover the different artforms.

Another thing is that the article has become markedly more centred on the Western world, if not indeed Anglocentric, though at least France and ancient Greece make cameo appearances. Perhaps an antidote to this would be to begin with some account of world folktales of the moon. China could feature with a discussion of Chang'e, though I appreciate that the boundaries of "fiction", "legend", "mythology" are contested. The same would go for the moon goddesses in other cultures from the earliest civilisations onwards: we'd best at least mention the question, and hopefully find some good sources that discuss the boundaries decently. Well, these are just a few thoughts on a large domain. As always, sources will be the key. For instance, one could search for good scholarly sources on the moon in poetry. I've placed the article on hold and will do whatever I can to assist. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:21, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback. I think you and I might have different ideas about what this article should be about. I rewrote it as part of a series of articles on Astronomical locations in fiction, and that's the scope I've tried to maintain—the Moon as a location (hence the first sentence: The Moon has appeared in fiction as a setting [...]). I don't mind expanding the article with proper MOS:POPCULT-compliant sourcing while keeping that scope, but that would make e.g. poetry about the Moon and lunar deities out of scope. If those aspects are to be covered, I would suggest that they be covered in a different article. TompaDompa (talk) 12:43, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Aha, then the problem is with the title, which is at best ambiguous and at worst not descriptive of your intended topic; but that would raise the difficult question of whether the "location" idea could be enforced from reliable sources, i.e. without straying into original research --- one would have to separate mentions of the moon in general from mentions which seemed to be specific to place, which might be very difficult. However, perhaps the intended scope is the Moon in science fiction? That would be far more defensible, and would avoid the multiple artform problem. Probably ALL the articles in the series you mention would in that case need to be renamed.

I certainly do not mean you to go into pop culture in particular; my view, as I've indicated with my list of artforms, is that human culture writ large, from Chinese medieval legend to the moon goddesses of ancient middle-eastern civilisations (...) is directly relevant to the "in fiction" label. I will not deny that recent western popular material might form a paragraph somewhere in there but it would be a small part of the scope. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:41, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Renaming it Moon in science fiction could work—it would certainly match Earth in science fiction—but then we would have to decide whether the works of Lucian, Antonius Diogenes, Johannes Kepler and so on count. We can't very well exclude them when the sources (Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia by Brian Stableford, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and so on) put them front and center. If you're comfortable with including them under the heading of science fiction (as the sources do), I have no objections to renaming the article Moon in science fiction. For now, I've clarified the scope a little. I don't think distinguishing between the Moon as a location and the Moon as a deity/object in the sky/something else should be a problem. The Moon might for instance be an important feature of a werewolf story, but that is obviously not the Moon as a location. TompaDompa (talk) 14:12, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be right. Given that Stableford (an ideal RS for the purpose) does the obvious thing and includes the ancients as antecedents to SF, it would clearly be fine to speak of them in that way. I think we should proceed with that as the working title for now, and the intention to change it immediately this GAN concludes (please don't change it now, it causes an automatic failure as the bot decides the article has been deleted!). Assuming we're going ahead in that way, then I'd say that the article's criterion 3a coverage of the Moon in science fiction topic remains very sketchy; for instance, we get to hear very little of what 'Life on the Moon' was said to be like, or what scholars thought (and think) of such fiction. The same could be said of the other sections; and they could all be illustrated, and we could report on how the style of such illustrations has been analysed by scholars. An FAC-style comprehensiveness is not required, but "the main points" are. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:50, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I have made it explicit that it is about science fiction, added a couple of additional images, and removed The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter since it's not science fiction. I've started expanding the "Life on the Moon" section based on the sources. I'll try to go into how scholars have reacted to and analysed all this, but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to find proper sourcing for. TompaDompa (talk) 18:33, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:36, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

By the way, there should be a link to List of appearances of the Moon in fiction somewhere. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:53, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

It may be as well to standardise on either the English or the French name for the 1902 film (in main text and image caption).

Done. I have also expanded the article a fair amount. TompaDompa (talk) 02:16, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Summary

• Images all PD on Commons.

• Coverage much improved.

• Structure is simple but reasonable for the new title, as agreed above.

• The writing is clear and the linking appropriate.

• Citations are provided and decently formatted.

I think we now have a suitably robust article on the Moon in science fiction that 'covers the main points' to declare this a Good Article. Good work. Since the GAN queue is now long, it'd be appreciated if you could take the time to review something from the list! Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:34, 27 December 2021 (UTC)