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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Well of Loneliness

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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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 06:16, 31 January 2007.

The Well of Loneliness

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Self-nomination. This book is no longer as well known as it once was, but it sparked a major controversy in its time and played an important role in lesbian history. I've rewritten the article from a near-stub, and it is currently a GA. It's been through a peer review (though with only one person responding), and SandyGeorgia was kind enough to look over the referencing. —Celithemis 13:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment it looks good, congratulations. I'm still reading it, but here are two suggestions concerning the lead:
"Sexual inversion" goes to a disambiguation page. This seems an important point to understanding the book so I think the link should go to the proper place and perhpas a short explanation of the term should be in the body of the article.
The article has a great number of references, but only one in the lead. I suggest that the lead be citated as well as it makes it much easier on the reader to substantiate main themes in the article. Johntex\talk 17:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Although I've seen people oppose FACs because there are cites in the lead, which implies the lead introduces a new idea. I don't mind an unreferenced lead; often it's difficult to find precise references as well. Trebor 15:44, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have no doubt that people have posed such objections. I consider it unfortunate, however. From the perspective of the reader, the lead is introducing new material because they are presumably reading the lead first. Therefore, it is helpful to the reader to cite the sources at that point, instead of forcing them to find the appropriate place in the article. My advice to cite the sources in the lead does not take away from other criteria, including the fact that the lead should not discuss any topics which are not covered in the main article body. Johntex\talk 20:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you, just pointing out that others might oppose if references were put in the lead. I don't think there's a hard-and-fast guideline though. Trebor 20:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've created a stub for sexual inversion (sexology) and revised and cited the lead. I was a little reluctant at first to sprinkle the lead with hundreds and thousands, but I tried to use it as an opportunity to make a sort of study guide, pointing out the most comprehensive and up-to-date sources on each subtopic, which might not be easy to pick out from the dense referencing in the main body of the article. —Celithemis 08:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Looks much better. I now Support its promotion to FA. Well done. Johntex\talk
Merging them would mean putting those nasty cite book and cite journal templates in the body of the article, which I think is an obstacle to editing, especially for less experienced users. It would also make it harder to use the References section as a bibliography for research, and the reduction in file size would be less than 1K by my estimate. So I don't think the tradeoff is worth it. —Celithemis 08:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support well written, referenced, structured, and of appropriate size. A few minor nitpicks and questions:
    • Spoilers on plot summary? I don't really know the guidelines regarding spoilers.
      The guideline doesn't quite seem to directly address this, but that's the way I usually see it done. It is kind of redundant, but since the spoilers extend beyond the plot summary, the alternative would be to put the spoiler warning right *after* a description of the ending, which seems even more odd.
    • The photo caption of Natalie Barney took me on a distracting detour - when I saw the caption (before hitting the supporting text), I went on a hunt for a reference. It might be helpful to repeat the citation (which I later found), using a named ref, in the caption. It's the sort of assertion one expects to be cited.
      Oops, I moved that image without thinking to check what it did to the referencing. I've added a footnote and mentioned Valerie earlier in the text as well.
    • Have a look at WP:WTA, specifically the word claim. Lowther, like Stephen, came from an aristocratic family, adopted a masculine style of dress, and was an accomplished fencer; in later years she claimed the character of Stephen was based on her. Can this be clarified as to its dubiousness, or reworded?
      Done.
    • The non-standard double spacing on the references made for a very long printout - my preference is towards the standard format of single spacing there.
      It looks the same on my browser, but I assume the extra lines between bullet points were causing that. Is it fixed now?
    • I prefer the standard WP:GTL, putting non-Wikified content (External links) last, but recognize the leeway provided there by GTL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, I moved it to the end. —Celithemis 08:31, 24 January 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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.
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