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Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Peer review/William Gibson

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William Gibson

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Recently reached GA, editors are somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed from here. What would it take for the article to reach WP:FA standards, do you think? Skomorokh incite 16:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Replies to comments are on the article discussion page. CaNNoNFoDDaTalk 22:17, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Susanlesch

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Hello. A great candidate for FA. A few ideas, please ignore them if they don't help. Good luck. -Susanlesch 15:30, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • The biography might be more encyclopedic if his family was explained, for example the names of his parents, any siblings, information about marriage and any offspring.
  • Could "Influences" and "Influenced" in the infobox be expanded into prose?
  • Could Mary Shelley and more female authors be mentioned?
  • Can Gibson's critics have a voice here?

Automated Suggestions from AZPR

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SandyGeorgia

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External jump here should be removed: "Gibson returned the favour, writing "U2's City of Blinding Lights" ... ", could be converted to a citation. There is some confusion on the use of WP:DASHes (there are spaced emdashes and unspaced endashes on page ranges, etc.). See MOS:CAPS#All caps (there are some all caps in the citations). Make sure all dates in citations are consistently formatted, some are linked and other aren't. e-mail exchange as a citation - how do you plan to justify that as a reliable source at FAC? There is some incorrect bolding in citations. Is this a date? Bolhafner, J. Stephen (3 1994). If so, it should be March 1994. This is a purely aesthetic comment, but the bottom half of the page just looks disorganized and cluttered. HTH, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:37, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lotsa ideas from Jay

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Here are some suggestions on where to take this article. The people working on this article are the experts; don't feel as if any point I make must absolutely be followed. (Sorry for the length, hopefully the ideas are more good than bad!) Feel free to ask for clarification on any point.

  • Biography If the answers are known they'd help create a more complete picture of his life.  :
    • Is it known what the Appalachian mining town was that they moved to?
    • Is it known how his mother died?
    • Was she still in West Virginia when he went to Tuscon?
    • Do we know why Tuscon?
    • Does he have any siblings?
    • If Gibson was 18 when his mother died does this mean he left high school just months before graduating?
    • The timeline here is a bit vague. Do we know how long he traveled in Europe and California after her death? Do we know what money he used for these travels? Did he have any money? Did he grow up with money after his father died?
    • Do we have any idea what he did from 1967-1972?
    • Did he meet his wife in Yorkville as part of this hippy community?
    • Do we know how long his second trip to Europe was? Big difference between a week-long trip to Paris and 9 months backpacking through 40 countries.
    • Do we know why he picked English?
    • Do we know what authors influenced him? Who he read and loved in college?
    • Do we know what year he got his bachelors?
    • Do we know what year he became a full-time writer?
    • Does he have kids?
  • Literary career The reason we have an encyclopedia article on William Gibson is because of his literary career. Therefore this section needs to be where we hit our home run. So, with that in mind:
    • Were his early short stories successful at all? Where were they published? When did people start paying attention to Gibson?
    • Neuromancer is still his best-known work. So let's say a bit more about it. Do we know anything about his writing process? About how he got the publisher? Did it start selling well right away? Or was it once it won the awards?
    • Why have 6.5 million people read Neuromancer? Or in other words, tell the reader more about what distinguishes this book. We don't need a plot summary. But how about a basic plot outline and the details such as the timeframe in which Neuromancer is set, some details about the futuristic world he paints, the sprawl from Boston to Atlanta! How is it different from other science fiction (less aliens and intergalactic travel)? We read Gibson for his dystopian vision of -- not the powers -- but the perils of technology. There was no ghetto on the Star Ship Enterprise.
    • Let's say just a bit more about the rest of the sprawl trilogy, a one- or two-sentence outline, and some sort of indication of to what extent the books were critical and/or commercial successes.
    • Same thing with the Bridge trilogy. Tell the reader a bit more about Gibson's vision of this future. What's significant and interesting about this world? Again, to what extent were the books critically and commercially successful?
    • And so take his recent novels and do much of the same. "Gibson viewed the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks as a nodal point in recent history..." -- indeed! Pattern Recognition begins with Cayce's father disappearing in the attacks. What a bold literary maneuver for 2003! (As an aside: I haven't read Spook Country yet. I loved Pattern Recogintoin. Think I'd like Spook?) Also, it'd be good to know more about the critical and commercial success of these books.
    • Also, there are two critical communities for Gibson. The science fiction critics and the mainstream critics. I think we could say more about Gibson's cross-over (the quote about not being in NY Times for ten years is the right direction), what sort of reception has he received outside of science fiction critics?
  • The Collaborations section is already quite good in my opinion. I didn't realize he actually wrote the Screenplay to Johnny Mnemonic. Again, as a major work of the author, we can say a bit more about this film. Has he ever commented on the screenwriting process? Is it something he'd like to do again? Again, what sort of critical and commercial reaction did the film receive? Was Gibson happy with the film?
  • Influence and recognition is quite good as well. I wonder, could we start the section with a better quote than that from Literary Encyclopedia? "One of North America's most highly acclaimed science fiction writers" is almost an understatement.
  • Visionary influence could use just a bit more about the things he foresaw. He predicted an internet in neuromancer, but how was it similar and how different to what happened? What subcultural aspects did he predict? What were his predictions regarding reality TV?
  • (And because I don't want this left unsaid, the picture in the infobox is just stunning.)

So I realize that's a huge amount of ideas. But like I said, I'm just sort of throwing out most of what occurred to me. If the information's not out there that's fine, but at least this way we asked the questions. The key goal should be expanding and improving Literary Career. Once that's been hit I think you'll be ready for FAC. Like I said, let me know if any of my suggestions are unclear. And again, don't take any of this as negative. This is a really great article. And I only have so many suggestions because the subject of the article is so interesting to me. --JayHenry 21:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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