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Template:Did you know nominations/Tomasz Jedrowski

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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 Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:32, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

DYK toolbox

Swimming in the Dark

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Created by Nigetastic (talk). Self-nominated at 12:18, 12 October 2020 (UTC).

  • Comment. While it technically passes (date, size, copyvio, hook, etc.) please see Talk:Tomasz_Jędrowski#Notability. I am not sure if the subject is notable. We should discuss this first, putting this on hold. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:44, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
  • strong oppose - putting it at the Main Page of wikipedia is a shameless misuse of wikipedia for promotion of a book fresh out of print. By the way "technically" has turned DYK into a travesty. DYK was intended to be collection of interesting jewels, morsels of knowledge. An now we have collection of pointless factoids. I stopped looking at this section of Main Page long time ago. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:59, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Staszek Lem: Frankly, I don't mind promoting as a side-product, IF the topic is notable. Wikipedia should not be used only for promotion, but if it is a byproduct of creating an entry on a notable topic, where's the harm? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:48, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
    Wikipedia notability and real-life notability are different animals. And this book is an artificial hype. Not to say that the article is of questionable notability even by Wikipedia standards. Staszek Lem (talk) 12:18, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't know enough about the topic to give an opinion on the notability concerns, but I do note that the hook is more about the book than the bolded link (the author himself), which is fine and perfectly acceptable for hooks (we've had several similar hooks in the past before), but also suggests that other possible suggestions could also be proposed here in case that falls through. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 10:02, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
  • The article was kept at the deletion discussion, and new sources were suggested for expanding the article. The birth date listed in the introduction does not appear to be cited anywhere in the article and needs to be addressed. Would the nominator be interested in citing the birth date and expanding the article with the new sources? Flibirigit (talk) 19:34, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit: Hello, Flibirigit. It's nice to hear from you. The author's birth year and location were already in the first ref, but that's a Polish-language periodical. I've now updated that citation include both the original Polish statement and an English translation. For the additional material, I penned the third paragraph under "Career" ("Many regions of Poland declared themselves LGBT-free zones in 2019[7], and Polish president ...") to include several more facts and three citations during the AfD discussion. For a re-write of the hook focused more on the author and less on the book, how would this work: ALT1 ... that Tomasz Jędrowski wrote his debut novel, Swimming in the Dark, a gay love story set in Communist Poland "to revive, to resuscitate, the queerness that had been silenced"? Thanks for your comments and attention.Nigetastic (talk) 20:16, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks. I will complete a more detailed review within 24 hours. Flibirigit (talk) 20:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks. No rush. I thought the AfD process killed its opportunity to be in DYK, so thanks for your consideration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigetastic (talk • contribs)
General: Article is new enough and long enough

Policy compliance:

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: No - ?
  • Interesting: Yes
QPQ: None required.

Overall: Article moved to mainspace on October 11 and nominated within seven days. Prose is at least 1,500 characters and meets length requirement. Article appears to be neutral in tone. No plagiarism issues detected. Article is mostly sourced, but a direct quote in the third paragraph is missing a citation directly after the sentence. It is preferable that the birth year and location be cited in the main body of prose, rather than in an introduction or infobox. No photos are used in the article. QPQ is not required as the nominator has less than five credits. The proposed hook is reasonbly interesting, but I ran into difficulty in verifying the citation for it. The statement "is a gay love story set in the closing years of the Polish People's Republic" is only mentioned explicity in the introduction and should be repeated somewhere in the main prose. Also, some readers may not equate the wording "twilight of Communist Poland" to "closing years of the Polish People's Republic". I suggest making the wording more similar. Also, the first sentence in the second paragraph which supports the hook would need a citation directly at its end as per DYK rules on citing a hook. Overall the nomination is interesting and I am happy to see it passed the AFD process. Flibirigit (talk) 23:39, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

  • @Flibirigit: Thanks for your attention and comments. Could you say which direct quote is uncited? If it's "to revive, to resuscitate, the queerness..." that sentence AND the one following it both came from the VICE piece. Ref #10 supports the previous two sentences. It wasn't possible to include his three thoughts ("...there’s a lot of anxiety...," "...to revive, to resuscitate, the queerness...," and "...also an homage and celebration of Polish culture...") into one passage without it being a long, clumsy run-on sentence. If the solution is to cite the first sentence and then 'ibid' the second, I'd be glad to do that. Also happy to write his statement about his age into the intro. Please confirm that I've understood your citation concern correctly. Thanks.Nigetastic (talk) 12:42, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • The quote "to revive, to resuscitate, the queerness that had been silenced" needs to have citation directly at its end, even if it means repeating the same citation later on in the paragraph. Flibirigit (talk) 15:24, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit: Thanks for your quick reply. I'll make these changes when I'm back at my computer and alert you when it's done. Nigetastic (talk) 15:27, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit: I've adjusted the article as we discussed above. In the proposed hook, I also changed "twilight of Communist Poland" to "last years of the Polish People's Republic as suggested. Please let me know if you have any additional suggestions, needs. Thank you. Nigetastic (talk) 16:43, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • The first sentence in the second paragraph of the Career section which supports the hook needs a citation directly at its end as per DYK rules on citing a hook. I also recommend copying the sentence "is a gay love story set in the closing years of the Polish People's Republic" from the introduction and putting it into the second paragraph. In other words, having it both in the introduction and the career section is what I meant by "should be repeated somewhere in the main prose". Ideally hooks are entirely cited in the main prose (career section) rather than in the introduction. Flibirigit (talk) 17:19, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit: I've followed your suggestions. Thank you. Repeated the 'is a gay love story' phrase at the top of the second 'graph in 'career.' Ref #6 supported both the second and third sentences. Rather than repeat the citation, I combined these two sentennces into one sentence, which reads better like this at any rate. Thanks.Nigetastic (talk) 18:30, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Article now meets all DYK criteria. The hook (ALT0) is interesting, properly mentioned and cited inline and verified with the cited sources. Flibirigit (talk) 19:01, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit: What happens now? Do I need to put this back into the/a queue? Nigetastic (talk) 19:45, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • Do nothing and wait. Another reviewer will promote this into a prep area or ask questions. Flibirigit (talk) 22:15, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I am also approving the first alternate hook labelled ALT1, in addition to ALT0. It is mentioned inline in two separate parts, both of which are cited and verified. I apologize that I forgot about it earlier. Flibirigit (talk) 01:07, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit: No problem at all. Either would be fine. I have no preference. Thanks for your attention. Nigetastic (talk) 13:40, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
Hi, I came by to promote this, but the article seems to be more about the book than the author. If the author is notable, then more should be added about him, with reliable references. Do you want to move this page to Swimming in the Dark? Yoninah (talk) 20:03, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Yoninah: Hello there. Thanks for stopping by and sharing your comments. By way of some background, I worked up this article bc I read the novel and liked it enough. The book seems to me to hang on the author better than the author hangs on the book, although others have made your same suggestion. The author's and the novel's notability, while not high, were ruminated over at length and adjudicated as adequate here in DYK, in the entry's Talk page, and in the AfD process. I made tweaks and offered compromises. I learned a lot, both cautionary and positive, about wikipedian culture and procedure. I'm still flexible. But maybe I'm feeling election fatigue, but having another round of disputation about this is something I have no will or the juice to do. The question of the article's existence seems to have been settled. I've said all along that I had no strong feelings about DYK. Nominating it was not my idea. I think enough people would like to see this, but the novelist has gotten quite a lot of attention in the mainstream media, so I don't feel the need to draw more attention to him or myself by appearing on DYK. If you want to cancel the nomination, I'm not going to resist. Nigetastic (talk) 16:34, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Nigetastic: thank you for your note. Yes, I read the AFD and talk page discussions after posting here. We do frequently post start-class articles at DYK, which this would be if it was just about the book. But as I said, if it's going to be about the author, you need more references to show notability. Are you willing to expand it with more references? Yoninah (talk) 17:00, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Yoninah: Thanks for your quick reply. If you could some quantity "expand with more references" I'd certainly consider it. Please don't take this as sarcasm, but in this process I have sometimes felt passed from one editor to another, and each would have an insistent but vague need that seemed to relate to written guidelines but sometimes felt like idiosyncratic or selective interpretations because the previous editor might have referred to the same guidelines and come up with a different point of view. You're saying something's missing. Could you somehow describe the contours of that hole? Jedrowski's early life and his parents? His marriage? How he switched from law to writing? The fact that a gay-themed Eastern European novel following Garth Greenwell's pair about Bulgaria looks like a trend of sorts? I just need this to stop feeling like an open-ended time commitment. Also, at this point, what are we discussing--where you'll let the thing go into DYK (from which I'm starting to think I should run and not ever return) or you'll open up the AfD process again? Thank you. Nigetastic (talk) 17:40, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Any information added on his early life/family or an early career switch would only strengthen a case for keeping this article as a biography. Flibirigit (talk) 17:51, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Nigetastic: I'm sorry you feel you're being shunted around. The fact that this article survived AFD shows that it is OK for Wikipedia. But we at DYK are putting these articles on the main page, which has a much higher level of inspection by readers and other editors across the project. Right now you have 3 sentences about him as a person, and the rest of the article is about the book. You do need more references to verify that he is notable—such as feature articles about him or interviews with him. The subheads would be: Early life and education, Career, Personal life. Honestly, I don't understand why you don't rename this article Swimming in the Dark and just rearrange what you have to: Synopsis, Development, Publication history, Author. When he writes another book, you can spin off the Author section into its own page. I could help you with the reorganization if you want. Yoninah (talk) 18:32, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit and Yoninah: Thank you both for your responses. I do not have strong feelings about whether the article is a bio of Jedrowski or about the novel. My intention was to write about Jedrowski, and in my mind I did that. The publishing world would read it that way because the entry mentions only scant details about the book. If I'd been penning an entry about the book, I would have looked up and cited not just who published it in the UK and the US, but who in other Anglophone territories and in what month(s) and in what initial quantities? Did it go out in cloth first or go straight to paper? Was the acquiring editor relevant? Does it fit into some evolving trend in LGBTQ lit? How is LGBTQ fiction selling these days? Other translations in the works yet? . . . That would be a book entry of substance. The plot too, sure, but that's not usually what makes a novel significant or even good. Jedrowski's birth in Germany to Polish parents and his preference for English and his intention to respond to and to complicate discourses about LGBTQ rights in contemporary Poland, that's about him. That's why I made this choice. I could re-write this with the same facts to center Jedrowski in a more literal way: swap, say, Publisher’s Weekly calling the novel “dazzling” for the Evening Standard saying Jedrowski has “a background story which is enough to arouse the curiosity of readers on the lookout for distinctive new voices.” But if it had to go one way or the other, this is an author bio. — But, look, I appreciate everyone's passion and attention. I've learned more about Wikipedia in three weeks than in the previous ten years. If the collective opinion here is that the, let's say, taxonomy of Wikipedia entries makes this an entry not about the author but about the book, that’s fine. And if it’s not even a good entry about the book but only a stub, that doesn’t hurt my feelings. I’m here to observe your criteria not turn Wikipedia into Publishers Weekly. If you’re saying this article as-is is a stub that needs fleshing out with a summary, critical analysis, pub history, etc., well, I could do some of that provisionally, but, look, I’m speaking to you from the trenches of academia, it’ll be 12-18 months before a review shows up in QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking or Slavic Review. It'll have to wait. If the status quo is inelegant but acceptable, mightn’t we simply let this thing exist as-is on the assumption that other editors will find it? Fans of gay novels outnumber gay novels. Someone will read that book and develop a burning zeal to work up a 300-word synopsis of the plot. — In the meantime, if your suggestion is that I change the title to make this about the book, yes, I’ll do that. But, first, if “renaming” it is a short-hand way of saying “moving” it and moving it requires a few key steps, please say what those are. And if the result is that the novel is the lemma and the page then needs a new infobox and a jpg of the right specs and resolution uploaded and declared fair us, etc. etc. then I’m going to beg your forgiveness if I leave that for someone else. — If it doesn’t fit your DYK criteria, that’s totally fine. As I said, I didn’t know it was there till someone suggested I bring this here. Nigetastic (talk) 20:11, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Nigetastic: When I first came to the article to promote it for DYK, I started moving things around before realizing this was about the author and not the book. I'm happy to make things easy for you: I'll move the page and do a quick edit on the material you have now, and we could promote that as a start-class article to the main page. Then, certainly, other readers can come along and improve the article. Let me know. Yoninah (talk) 20:21, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Yoninah: That would be fine. Many thanks for you help and have a great weekend. Nigetastic (talk) 20:26, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Nigetastic: OK, that was pretty easy because, as I said, your article was mostly about the book anyway. :) Please look over what I did. I see you have a bunch of sources that are actually reviews. Would you be able to add a line or two of commentary from each review under the Reception section? That would help a lot. I'll get busy on categorization. Yoninah (talk) 21:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
Well @Nigetastic:, I have a queery for you; I was planning on writing the book article myself and had already been researching (English) references, which I have plenty.
The choice is yours, I’m ok either way. We can: 1. Leave your article as being about the book, and I’ll step back; or, 2. Switch back to how it was before the move, you can research more for his biography, and I’ll create a book article (and possibly try for another DYK). There’s no rush but think over what you prefer, and we can go by that. Gleeanon 00:17, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Nigetastic:@Gleeanon409: Another idea would be for you, Gleeanon409, to edit, expand, and improve the book article that you see now. Then you can be included as a co-creator on this DYK nomination. We're not in a huge rush here; if you want a week or two to work on expanding and improving it, we'll wait. Yoninah (talk) 00:26, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Placing nomination on hold until a decision in made on biography or book article, or perhaps both. If indeed two article are made, I will extend the courtesy of reviewing both. Whatever the outcome, I will return to this nomination and complete a review. Flibirigit (talk) 00:32, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
  • My preference and specialty is creating from scratch, call it controlling if that works, then I launch it into the world. Otherwise I’d rather leave it for someone else to fiddle with.
    Also it occurs to me that @Nigetastic: would be better at doing the author research as he can deal with presumably Polish sources which I wouldn’t want to try to interpret. Gleeanon 00:37, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Nigetastic: OK, this is what needs to be done before we turn over the re-review to Flibirigit:
    1. Add a citation for this sentence: It was published simultaneously in a Polish translation by Robert Sudół as Płynąc w ciemnościach, OsnoVa, 2020.
    2. Do you have any more to add to the Synopsis? (It does not need to be sourced, but cannot be copied from a source.)
    3. Can you expand the Reception section with any of the comments in the reviews that you already cited?
  • Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 12:56, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Yoninah: Sorry to be getting to this late this evening. Long day at the office. I needed to sort out the publication history. The existing copy had Morrow doing the English and Osnova doing a simultaneous Polish, which needed a citation. In fact, Bloomsbury went first in February with English in the UK. The Polish was a day or two later--we'd still call that simultaneously. Morrow did North America in April. I've stated that as succinctly as possible in one paragraph. I cited the Polish publishers website. I hope it's not too obscure for some editors, but Publishers Weekly indication that the book pubbed in April is a fairly understated "(Apr.)" at the end of the review. For something more explicit, one could, I suppose go to Amazon, but PW is the industry bible. I'll need to take a crack at the others tomorrow. Enough of the reviews tease out the plot well enough to add 2-3 sentences without spoilers. (Spoiler: not a happy ending). I can do the reviews at the same time since those will necessarily draw on different passages from the same reviews. Thanks again. With hope when we meet here again we'll have some political news to lift our spirits. Nigetastic (talk) 01:41, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the update. Please comment here when finished and I will redo the review. Flibirigit (talk) 04:19, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Yoninah and Flibirigit: Hello there. I have also fleshed out a basic summary of the plot with three existing and one new source. I believe this is what was required, but please assess the work and let me know if you need something more or different. Nigetastic (talk) 23:20, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The expansion is excellent! Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 23:27, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Second review

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems

Hook eligibility:

  • Cited: No - ?
  • Interesting: Yes
QPQ: None required.

Overall: Article still meets newness requirements. Length and sourcing are adequate. Article is neutral in tone. No plagiarism issues detected. No photos are used in the article. QPQ still not required. Previous hooks ALT0 and ALT1 are now declined. ALT2 is interesting, but the wording "makes frequent allusions to" does not appear in this article, in comparison to "as a major influence". Is there a more similar wording solution? Another possible hook could use the phrase "hotly contested six-way publishing auction". Cheers. Flibirigit (talk) 00:38, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

  • @Flibirigit: Could we sidestep the issue by saying:
  • ALT3: "... that James Baldwin's novel Giovanni's Room both inspired in part and features in the 2020 novel Swimming in the Dark, a gay love story set in the last years of the Polish People's Republic?" :*"Features in" seems to make a less quantitative claim than "makes frequent allusions to." Nigetastic (talk) 01:07, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The words "featured in" are not mentioned in the article. It is important to ensure the wording in the hook is similar to what is in the article. Flibirigit (talk) 01:18, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit: Please don't take this as snark, but I only deployed "featured" as a more interesting way to say "is." How would you feel about something very neutral, just locative: "is," "appears," or "shows up"? Namely:
  • If you want a word to tie back to an exact citation, there is a Slate magazine review that reads: "The looping in of Giovanni’s Room as a meta text also deepens rather than deflects from Jedrowski’s ...". I could cite the Slant article someplace in the article and then we could say "...both inspired in part and is looped into the 2020 novel." Using "looped in" there is a curious choice of words--as if we phoned Baldwin into a conference call--but that's the way the author of the review used it. Nigetastic (talk) 01:41, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I notice the proposed hooks are becoming longer and wordier which reduces the interest, and make it more difficult to verify. I will wait for Yoninah to reply. Flibirigit (talk) 01:49, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit: Quite OK. I will support any suggestion Yoninah makes. Nigetastic (talk) 01:51, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit and Yoninah: Good morning. I'm very happy to have you all settle on some final form for the hook. I'm in a coffee break at work and thought I'd offer this version. I just gave the last version a good, hard edit and framed "Giovanni" as "influencing" (from the existing article) and "appearing in":
  • Please format new hook suggestions using ALT in bold font and increase the number by one, and start the hook on a new line instead of in the middle of a paragraph. It is very difficult to sort out what is being proposed from long paragraphs. I have reformatted the above hooks, and I still waiting a reply from Yoninah. Flibirigit (talk) 15:48, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
I have considered all of the hooks above and I am approving ALT5, and rejecting all others. The wording in ALT5 is more concise and interesting, it is mentioned inline, properly cited and verified by the sources. ALT2 is rejected because "makes frequent allusions to" is not supported by the article. ALT3 is rejected for being too wordy and "features in" is subjective when the article says it is simply mentioned. ALT4 is rejected because it focuses on the older book. ALT6 is rejected because the wording "plays a pivotal role" is very subjective and I do not see it supported by the article. Also, if anyone wants to propse hooks based on "hotly contested six-way publishing auction" or the "anxiety of LGBT rights in Poland", I would be very receptive to consider them and revisit the nomination. Overall, this has been a very long process, but I sincerely hope this book does get featured in the DYK sectio,n and that the nominator continues to contribute. Flibirigit (talk) 18:33, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit and Yoninah: Hello there. Thank you for the encouragement. I wasn't sure that anyone outside of publishing would get jazzed about a publishing auction. And I feared leading with the LGBT rights angle would give the appearance of politicizing DYK. I'm glad to see the article and its possible use in DYK survive, but many people pitched in and I don't feel like I own it. I'm ready to take a back seat in the process. If someone else feels passionate about framing this another way, that's OK with me. Nigetastic (talk) 20:29, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Nigetastic: we've really spent a lot of time of this and it's time to move on. As you saw from my talk page discussion, there are any number of people who want to rewrite articles their own way. You just have to put your article out there and let other people add or subtract as they will (be sure to watchlist it!). Thanks for the tick, Flibirigit. I formatted ALT5. Yoninah (talk) 20:45, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @Flibirigit and Yoninah: Quite happy to move on. The book is receding too far in my memory now to engage with it. Thank you both. Hope to see this in DYK in the fullness of time. Nigetastic (talk) 22:16, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
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