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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/John Neal bibliography/archive1

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

The list was promoted by Giants2008 via FACBot (talk) 00:25, 27 September 2021 (UTC) [1].[reply]

John Neal bibliography

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John Neal bibliography (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator: Dugan Murphy (talk) 16:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If your local library has anything by John Neal, it's likely locked up in special collections. And yet his bibliography contains influential criticisms and creative works like the first use of son-of-a-bitch in American fiction, the first uses of natural diction in Anglophile literature, the first works of American art criticism, the constitution of the first public gym established by an American, the first hardcover novel about the Salem witch trials, the first work by an American in British literary journals, and so many more groundbreaking, before-their-time works. To document Neal's career as a poet, critic, novelist, children's author, short story writer, journalist, playwright, historian, and translator, I put together this bibliography. This is my first FLC, though I did go through FAC recently twice for another article, so I'm going into this nomination fairly confident. I'm particularly interested in hearing from reviewers on my decision to WP:SPLITOUT the section on articles in periodicals. Thank you in advance for taking a look! Dugan Murphy (talk) 16:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Initial comments
  • Against "Keep Cool, A Novel", what does "M.D.C." mean?
Reasonable question! I added a note there to answer that. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The best poetic description of Niagara Falls up to that time" - according to whom? There's a number of other direct quotes which would benefit from clarification of who actually said them.
The cited book says "With 'The Battle of Niagara' he became known for writing the greatest poetic description of Niagara Falls to that time." So the cited author is not referring to any one person's pronouncement. I reworded this claim in the article to hopefully better reflect the source. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A Biography of Neal" - no reason for capital B
Agreed! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A Portland, Maine guidebook "so chaotic in arrangement as to diminish greatly its usefulness."" - not a complete sentence so shouldn't have a full stop
Agreed! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is it possible to clarify who John Bratish Eliovich was?
That's reasonable. I added "alleged con man" to clarify. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Further comments
  • I'd merge the second and third paragraphs under Selected articles, as both are very small
Agreed! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""a scathing satire," according to" - comma should be outside the quote marks
Agreed! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""Mrs. Farnham lived long enough to retrace her ground and accept the highest truth," according to" - and again
Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "published in 2 installments" => "published in two installments"
Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "distinct subtitles: "More Dogs," "Fact," "Cats," and "Joe Miller"" - again, commas should be outside quote marks
Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Along with "Robert Steele," one of two stories" - same again - in fact, check throughout for this as it occurs in quite a lot of places
Done. As you can see, this is the part of the Wikipedia MOS that comes least naturally to me. Thank you for finding these. I just searched for the rest and I think I have now moved all the punctuation marks within quotes that aren't part of the quotes themselves. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notes for "The Ins and the Outs, or the Last of the Bamboozled. By a Disappointed Man" randomly end in a semi-colon
Deleted! Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • ""show's Neal's usual facility in Yankee dialect and Yankee psychology"" - there should not be an apostrophe in "shows"
Agreed! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the notes for "The Switch-Tail Pacer. A Tale of Other Days" there's an opening quote mark but no corresponding closing quote mark
Added. Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I appreciate you taking the time to read through it all and bringing up all these issues. Let me know if you think any of these items still need to be addressed.Dugan Murphy (talk) 19:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@ChrisTheDude: do you support the nomination now that the issues you raised have been addressed, do you have more issues to raise, or would you like to leave your comments as just comments? Dugan Murphy (talk) 13:00, 30 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source review – Pass

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Will do soon. Aza24 (talk) 01:06, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Sorry for the delay, comments below:
Formatting
  • I'm not sure what "serial biography" means—perhaps link to Serial (literature)? (if that's the correct link)
That article describes well this use of "serial", so I just Wikilinked it. Dugan Murphy (talk) 21:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • recommend adding location for Harvard University, like the other refs
Agreed! Done. I also Wikilinked Harvard. Dugan Murphy (talk) 21:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Reliability
  • No issues here
Verifiability
  • no issues
  • Well not really anything to say over all—apologies for the delay. I've left two comments but they're to minor to prevent a source review pass, though I still recommend you address them. Best - Aza24 (talk) 23:40, 26 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I believe those comments are now addressed. Thank you for taking the time to do a source review! Dugan Murphy (talk) 21:50, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from HAL

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  • The lead is too short.
Agreed. I just expanded it by about 100%. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:22, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:22, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would do it in the list as well. ~ HAL333 23:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Of course! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find the partial inclusion of articles strange. Either all articles should be included or it should be a "See also" link.
My thinking here is that I am following the WP:SPLITOUT policy and the precedent of "Selected works" sections you see in authors' biography articles. The split-out Articles by John Neal is 160,143 bytes, compared to this article's 113,603, so putting the full list of articles back in would more than double this article's size. I see value in having a shortened list of the more important stuff here, plus the full list in another article. Thoughts? Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:22, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Up to you in the end. ~ HAL333 23:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I'm going to keep as-is unless I find a policy to the contrary that convincingly applies here. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

More comments later. ~ HAL333 20:31, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to review and write up a few comments! I look forward to more. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:22, 7 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy ping for @HAL333: ;) Aza24 (talk) 21:29, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am assuming that everything in the lead is sourced later in the list, right?
True. In fact, I think everything in the lead is copied from the prose introductions to the sections. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a novelist, John Neal I would link "John Neal" since this is the first usage outside the lead.
Good point! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • To improve flow, you could combine the sentences A pioneer of American colloquialism and dialects in novels, Neal's novels are aligned with both the literary nationalist and regionalist movements. They also anticipate the characteristics of the American Renaissance
I like that idea. Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe center the years in the columns. They are ever so slightly offset to the left.
That might be what it looks like in the 1st section, but in the subsequent sections I think it would look weird to center those columns and I want to be consistent in column alignment between sections. Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are none of the novels notable enought to be redlinked?
That's a good question. What I just did was redlink the one work that is also redlinked from John Neal (writer). Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • References need to be centered.
I can't figure out how to center the text in just one column without centering it in all columns. Can you help? Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Dugan Murphy – You can do the easily by replacing | {{sfn|Richards|1933|p=1882}} with | style="text-align: center;" | {{sfn|Richards|1933|p=1882}}. I have done one for you as an example. Repeat same in all the reference cells. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 09:01, 12 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Kavyansh.Singh! References are now all centered. Dugan Murphy (talk) 22:47, 14 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 18:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's all. A really nicely put together list. I apologize for my tardiness. ~ HAL333 23:11, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for taking the time to look it over! Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy ping for HAL333, just for them to take a second look. – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 18:00, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@HAL333: With your comments addressed, would you say that you support this nomination? Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:48, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Kavyansh.Singh

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  • "Between 1817 and 1835 Neal became the" – comma after 1835
Agreed. Done! Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:41, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A pioneer of colloquialism, John Neal" – 'John Neal' could go without 'John'....
Agreed. Done! Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:41, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking the time to review! Would you say you support this nomination? Dugan Murphy (talk) 00:41, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. I support this list for promotion as a Featured List. Would appreciate any comments for this nomination. Thanks! – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 12:35, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Grapple X

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Largely happy with this but with a few small comments:

  • His last major work was a guide book was an 1874 guidebook for his hometown, Portland, Maine—I know city-comma-state is the standard construction but leading into that with another comma is awkward here; suggest his hometown of Portland, Maine or something similar to avoid this.
Done! I also cut the extra words in that sentence to make it legible. Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No issue with red-linking something notable but not yet created but it's odd to see only one novel in that section being linked like this; is there anything about Rachel Dyer: a North American Story that would set it apart from Neal's other novels in this regard? Less a matter of whether linking is right or wrong than it is one of consistency, really.
I hear what you're saying. Hal 333 asked in one of his comments (above) if anything was worth redlinking. I decided to redlink just Rachel Dyer because it is the only work of Neal's redlinked from John Neal (writer). The only reason it is redlinked there is because it is generally regarded as Neal's best novel (see the notes column for that novel's entry in the bibliography). But sometimes I feel like if I'm not going to redlink all of them then I should redlink none of them, as was originally the case. Especially because they're all basically unknown to a modern audience. Do you have more thoughts on it? Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Newspapers for which Neal wrote" section has no real context; I understand this may be due to necessity but do the sources you use for it mention the general or most common nature of these contributions—ie are they also serialising his fiction, or was he a columnist, etc? If the information isn't available that's fine but if it could be added briefly it would be nice.
Good point. I just added a short paragraph that hopefully adds sufficient context. Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to support this at present but would welcome the above being at least responded to if not actioned. Good work. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 13:08, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for reviewing the list! Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:35, 22 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Changes look good. What I would say about linking is that given the breadth of sourcing used here, it seems likely that a number of these novels would meet GNG if they haven't been created yet. Seventy-Six seems like a good contender, and you've several sources mentioning basically all of them bar the dime novels. It's worth considering; one link in a list makes more sense if it's to an extant article but one red link and no others does stand out. It's not an actionable objection to worry about though. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 09:52, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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