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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Robert Benchley/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 15:55, 26 July 2007.

Robert Benchley

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Article on one of America's greatest humorists. Peer reviewed, copyedited by three different people, I think it meets the relevant criteria.

Two notes before we dive in:

  1. Yes, the Yates and Benchley texts lack ISBNs. That's because the versions I used don't have ISBNs assigned.
  2. Yes, the redlinks are around 16% at the time of nomination, about 6% higher than MOS guidelines typically recommend. These are a priority right now, and will likely be widely dealt with before most of you see this comment, but that shouldn't stand in the way of this article as a whole.

So let's have at it! --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:27, 6 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Some things need doing before I can support.
  • The lead is rather short. The lead isn't just about what he is most remembered for, it's also for what he did thye rest of the time.
  • I'm really bad at leads, any help you can give me here would be excellent.
  • Robert Benchley ... to Charles and Maria Benchley, an unplanned birth. and Upon learning of Edmund's death, Maria Benchley was believed to have cried out "Why couldn't it have been Robert? suggest a rather uncomfortable family life for the poor boy. Is this true? If so it is worth fleshing this out, rather than simply implying it; if it isn't these statements need to be put into some kind of context.
  • The statement is true, but there's nothing to indicate that it was a bad childhood. I'll try to make that a bit clearer, but there's not much else about his childhood written.
  • damaging his academic credentials toward the end of his term - but the next line talks bout his enrolment in Harvard. He can't have done that badly. Is theres ome point to talking about his grades? How bad were they, really?
  • It doesn't go into detail, but, for whatever reason, I don't see it as that jarring. His credentials simply weren't damaged enough to retract the acceptance, apparently.
  • Following his acceptance, Benchley enrolled at Harvard University in 1908... This sentence is awkward. Besides, he could hardly do so afterwards, could he? Probably best just to drop the Following his acceptance, bit.
  • Done.
  • In the education section, it might just be worth mentioning what he studied, rather than just what he did in his spare time. I know no one actually goes to uni to learn, but we can still pretend otherwise!
  • I'll look into this a little more, my books don't really mention it, as his academics really were a bit of an afterthought. In a way, his classes were what he did in his spare time when not going all over the place.
  • A theatrical production by the members of the Round Table was put together in response to a challenge. - A challenge by whom? What was the nature of the challenge? Where such challenges commonplace?
  • Good catch. I'll adjust this and let you know when I have the details set.
  • Done. I've actually expanded it a bit, since I could.
  • This character, labeled the "Little Man" and in some ways similar to many of Twain's protagonists, - don't drop Twain's first name if it is the first time the he comes up.
  • It wasn't when i initially wrote it. Fixed.
  • The Algonquin Round Table setion - most of this is covered in the article on his life, the rest should be moved there.
  • I'm not 100% on board with this yet. It's generally considered a major enough part of his like to not seem to gloss it over, and one person suggested breaking it out like this already. I can be persuaded, though.
Then it needs to be expanded to explain its importance/significance. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Overall I found the article interesting, however, and this is due to the choppy nature of the man's life, some aspects of his autobiography are kind of disjointed, but with a bit of copyediting and my problems addressed I think I'll be able to support it. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:06, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comments. Stay tuned! --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Pretty good, but:
    • The lead could stand to be expanded. It does not provide a full summary of the article as recommended by WP:LEAD. For example, there is no mention of his early life and education, which has almost two text pages in the main body. The lead NEVER mentions his work at Vanity Fair, which according to the article seems a pivotal point in his career.
    • Additionally, the image in the infobox uses a "U.S. only" PD tag. This indicates that the image MAY not be free usage in other jurisdictions. This may need to be fixed.
      • Well...uh...it's public domain in the United States. That's what the image is. I've double checked at commons, and this is the proper tag. Not sure what's up here.
    • The Works Cited section seems to have links to Amazon.com listings. This implies that Wikipedia is endorsing a commercial site as the source of books. Just leave them as plain text if the content of the books themselves is not availible online. I see no reason to link to a place to order a book. Everyone should know how to use a library to find a book. If these books are being used a references, I don't see why they are referenced the way that they are.
      • We disagree on this, and this is a common thing I've done in numerous other FAs. As references, they're entirely valid.
These are relatively minor fixes. Overall, a pretty good article. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, I look forward to your response. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:54, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—1a. The whole article needs attention.
    Jeff seems to be busy, I'll try and answer these. Most seem to be caused by taking bits out of context. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 13:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • "best known"—My US Encarta dictionary says it has to be hyphenated.
      • With respect, your US Encarta dictionary is either being misinterpreted or is just wrong. Either interpretation of that: "was an American humorist best-known for his work" "Peter Benchley was best-known for the book" is not-grammatical and, well, just-looks-silly. :-) --AnonEMouse (squeak) 13:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • "His legacy includes his written work, as well as his numerous short film appearances." What else does his legacy comsist of, since you've subsetted it with "includes"? And what is it with this "as well as thing (marked version of "and")?
      • Oh, his participation in the Algonquin Round Table, the humorists who follow his style, the films which he wrote, not just appeared in, etc, all of which are detailed in both the lead and article. Note that "includes" is specifically requested by another reviewer, apparently we can't please everyone. 'as well as' changed to 'and'. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 13:58, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • "he actually was the great-grandchild"—Remove "actually", which is poorly located, anyway.
      • You're taking that out of context. The sentence, shortened, reads "Although he lied a lot, he actually was the great-grandchild" - compare "Although he lied a lot, he was the great-grandchild". The "actually" is a needed contrast, emphasizing that there was truth among the fiction.
    • "Robert Benchley was born on 15 September 1889 in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Charles and Maria Benchley, an unplanned birth." Awkward sentence structure. And it should appear at the start of the paragraph, shouldn't it?
      • Chronological order. Ancestor, then birth.
    • "Robert's older brother, Edmund Benchley, was thirteen years older, and died in 1898 in the Spanish-American War, when Robert was only nine. (Upon learning of Edmund's death, Maria Benchley was believed to have cried out "Why couldn't it have been Robert?!", a comment for which Maria spent a long time atoning.) This had a considerable impact on Robert's life, as his later writings would show distinct pacifist leanings." "a comment for which Maria spent a long time atoning"—Vague, attitudinal rather than factual, and unreferenced. "Older" x 2. "Upon"—Why not just plain "On"? "as his later writings ..."—The causality escapes me. This is a bombsite.
      • One bomb at a time, please. :-)
        1. That whole paragraph is referenced to Benchley, 26–30; Gaines, 4.
        2. The causality of his brother being killed in a war causing pacifist views escapes you? Surely not; death of immediate relatives is the classical reason people oppose war, see Cindy Sheehan for example. I made the reference clearer in case you lost it due to the intervening parenthetical remark. In Benchley's case, his opposition to war caused him great professional problems, see below in the article, and the relationship to his brother's death has been commented on in biographies, this isn't original research.
        3. http://www.bartleby.com/68/67/4267.html

Those for whom simplicity and conciseness in language use are the highest and only virtues argue that on should almost always replace upon, but this is nonsense. Both are useful words, offering variety at the very least, and occasionally upon offers a precision on lacks or can usefully provide a slightly more elevated tone. Both prepositions are Standard, and both are high-frequency words.

Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

    • "Benchley married Gertrude Darling; they met while Benchley was in high school in Worcester, engaged during his senior year at Harvard, married in June 1914,[5] and their first child, Nathaniel Benchley was born a year later. A second son, Robert Benchley, Jr., was born in 1919." Now we're no longer on first-name terms with him, suddenly. This list is poorly formatted and organised, and the first sentence is too long. Tony 09:40, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mouse, despite your taking up resisting my suggestions as a sport, I'm still not satisfied with the writing. It has improved a little, though.
"Benchley did some copy work for the Curtis Publishing Company during the summer following graduation (1913) while doing other odd service jobs, such as translating a number of French catalogs for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts."

Let's get rid of "some" and "a number of".

"he was hired by Curtis as a full-time staff member, preparing copy for their new house publication, Obiter Dicta."

"preparing" is uncomfortable. Is it causal ("... member to prepare")? Or "... member; in this position, he prepared ...".

"The first issue was soundly criticized"

No, you mean "roundly". "Sound" (Ger. "gesund") means healthy.

" but Benchley and Curtis were not a good match"

Vague: they fought? their skills were disparate? There's a subsequent causal "as" that I'm suspicious of.

Why do we need a link to the article on China in "Chinese-American"? Tony 03:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed several in that collection that I was able to fix. I didn't "fix" where doing so would require knowledge that I don't have. As for the last question: Well, linking where possible is a nutso Wikipedia habit. Consider the very first sentence (after stripping away the boldface and the dates): Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor. Do WP's writers really suppose that its readers will, say, think Ooh yes, "American"? Just what does that mean? Let's look it up!? I'd instead write Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor (no links). But in the past when I've stripped away such linkcruft my edits have been reverted. -- Hoary 08:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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