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Template:Did you know nominations/Inner space (science fiction)

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 12:31, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

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Inner space (science fiction)

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Created by Piotrus (talk). Self-nominated at 11:00, 5 March 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Inner space (science fiction); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough

Policy compliance:

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: No - See below.
  • Interesting: Yes
QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article created on 5 March, and is well beyond the required minimum length. All sources are, as far as I can tell, reliable for the material they are cited for—though I have not been able to access all of them. Earwig reveals no copyvio, but see below about WP:Close paraphrasing. There are no obvious neutrality issues. The hook is interesting (could perhaps be tweaked to be catchier), but the sourcing in the article needs to be tweaked to have an inline reference at the end of the sentence (WP:DYKHFC); I think this is an acceptable rephrasing of the Graaf quote about being "a polemical statement against the science fiction concept of 'Outer space' – space", so that's the sentence where a source should go (I'll have to WP:AGF since I have not been able to access the source—but that's not a problem, because I will). QPQ has been done. Some comments on the content:

  • I have made a bunch of tweaks to links, formatting, references, and general copyediting myself.
  • Inner space in the context of science fiction refers to works – MOS:REFERSTO.
  • Works from this genre played an important role in the emergence of the New Wave in science fiction in the 1960s. – I don't get this from the body?
  • "Characteristic" is a rather odd heading.
  • defined inner space as "a category introduced to science fiction by representatives of the New Wave to designate human's internal, mental experiences as imaginary worlds with no connection to the real world. They also that "fantastic images painted by [New Wave artists] are... projections of mental states, symbols of unspecified longings and anxieties of modern people" – there are an odd number of "quotation marks" here. I'm guessing one should be immediately following "real world"?
  • to designate human's internal, mental experiences – I'm assuming this is a translation from the original Polish. Should human's be humans' (or perhaps a human's or humanity's)?
  • They also that – there seems to be a word missing.
  • In its most narrow definition, the genre has been described as works about "technologically supported journeys into the interior of the human psyche" – the quote from the source is "Technologically assisted journeys into the hypothetical Inner Space of the human mind", but this is somewhat besides the point as it does not seem to be an attempt at a definition of "inner space" so much as an example.
  • The term inner space in fantasy is also used in contexts other than psychological ones, including: in works about cyberspace, underwater regions or miniaturization. – I'm skeptical that "fantasy" is the right word here, but more to the point I don't get miniaturization from the cited sources?
  • creators of ambitious science fiction should move away from repetitive stories about galactic adventures and focus on the inner cosmos of man – WP:Close paraphrasing of the source's "ambitious science fiction should abandon repetitive space stories and investigate the inner space of the human mind".
  • Ballard criticized traditional science fiction, with themes such as space travel and exploration, as "childish" and called for works that are "exploring ourselves, the hidden life of the psyche". – that was Priestley, not Ballard.
  • He points to H. G. Wells' novel Mr. Blettsworthy on Rampole Island (1928) as the earliest example, describing it as a "prototype of inner-space works". – well, not quite. He gives it as an early example, one of two by Wells, and describes those two as "prototype inner-space stories".
  • Rob Mayo traces the genre origins to the works of Peter Phillipps – works, plural?

Ping Piotrus. TompaDompa (talk) 20:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

TompaDompa, I've fixed some issues raised, see diff. Please note I do not have access to VG source, and I just did my best to translate and copyedit related content from pl wiki referenced to it.

Some issues you raise, while valid, are beyond the DYK level of what is required (I am currently not intending to take this to a GA level, where we need to look into such issues). Ex. "refer to". Feel free to reword it; I doubt it is something that would be a common GA issue (maybe FA?).

Re: "I don't get this from the body?" - but I do. Ex. "Ballard's appeal fell on fertile ground, and the term became popular in the work of New Wave writers in the mid-1960s."
Re: miniaturization - I think this is a reference to works like Innerspace etc. Or see cited Stableford: "in 2003 the Univer�sity of Michigan launched an ‘‘inner space program’’ using nanoprobes to observe chemical activity in living cells".
Re: Wells - I think that's a reasonable understanding of what he writes; he does not cite an earlier example. I've reworded it.
I think Mayo mentions other works of PP. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 02:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Some of the things raised above do indeed go beyond the DYK requirements (MOS:REFERSTO, as part of MOS:LEAD, technically falls under WP:GACR 1b). I've made a few additional changes myself:

  • On the New Wave thing in the lead, I've rephrased it somewhat to avoid implying that this inner space caused the emergence of the New Wave rather than being a part of it.
  • On miniaturization, I've removed it—the University of Michigan thing seems to be about science rather than science fiction.
  • On Mayo, I've rephrased it to only mention the first work by Phillipps (I don't think Mayo makes a point about the later works as part of the inner space theme).

Please check that these changes seem alright to you. Two things still need to be resolved before this is ready:

  • This concept is narrower than the broader concept of psychological science fiction. In its most narrow definition, the genre has been described as works about "technologically assisted journeys into the hypothetical Inner Space of the human mind". – this goes a fair bit beyond what the source says (the source does not compare the concepts of inner space and psychological science fiction, and the quoted part is not a definition of the genre). The easiest solution would be to remove this part.
  • On the Graaf source, I found this Polish-language source that quotes Graaf on page 148 and added it to the article in the proper place. Could you check that it's okay (and perhaps translate the quoted passage in the reference)?

Ping Piotrus. TompaDompa (talk) 11:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

TompaDompa, Thank you. I've c/e this while attempting to keep the ref. I think it is important to try to clarify the difference between inner space and broader psychological science fiction (one of many concepts we really need to write about, religious science fiction, political science fiction - all are missing...). Perhaps you've seen another source that does it better? I've tweaked the translation of the quote you found to avoid space-space (cosmos is better and truer the original, even if it is not very common word in English; we could also go with 'universe'). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 01:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
@Piotrus: I think "cosmos" is a recognizable enough word to speakers and readers of the English language, thanks to Carl Sagan's Cosmos if nothing else. On the source question, how about adding this by Scott Bukatman (also possible to read here, and cited here on page 143)? "Narrower" might be a bit too strong of a statement (it's borderline, at least) but "not synonymous" would certainly be okay. TompaDompa (talk) 12:43, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
TompaDompa, Nice, I'll add the source and rewoird this. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 12:49, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Ready. TompaDompa (talk) 12:53, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
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