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Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies/Peer review/2008

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Homosexuality in speculative fiction

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
This passed GA a little while back, with a thorough review by a SF-knowledgable reviewer. I've since done some expanding and more citing. Before submitting for FA (or probably A class first) i need some input from someone from the LGBT side of things. Would be good to know if i missed any gay classics etc that should be mentioned here (all the examples given have secondary sources saying something more than that they exist and were popular), and if the writing should be changed. Eg. I used LGBT as a synonym for gay, but this article doesn't discuss transgenderism, only transexualism (if i have the difference right!) in the context of the resulting sexuality, and i used gay to include lesbian etc. Also please let me know if there are genre literary terms that cannot be understood by general readers. And any other improvments of course! Many thanksYobmod (talk) 10:15, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe take another bash at the summary for yaoi? (We've recently rewritten the lead there.) Also, an easily-sourced example of yuri SF is Simoun (anime). -Malkinann (talk) 04:30, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, you'll need to standardise the reference formatting. ({{Citation}}, Harvard, etc...) -Malkinann (talk) 11:28, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks for rewriting the Yaoi/Yuri part! The referencing is a known job to do - i'm waiting until i've exhausted the sources, then will do it all in one go :). Are you reviewing the whole article or just the section you are expert on? (So other reviewwers know whether they should join in)15:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
I've been mainly focussing on yaoi and yuri, as that's what I know most about, but I'll have a look through the whole article. There was no such thing as lesbianism in the 1920s and 30s? -Malkinann (talk) 19:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to the sources, not in genre fiction "During this period, lesbians were almost entirely unrepresented as either heroes or villains.[20]". I will add Herland (novel) to the proto-SF, and Orlando (novel), but is nothing for the pulp section in the sources (nb: Women and gays were both marginalised then, so lesbians got double excluded.)

Cleveland Street scandal

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch peer review

This peer review discussion has been closed.

Thanks for all and any comments. DrKiernan (talk) 14:31, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Laser brain comments

This is already very good, and I don't think it will be a huge push to get it to FA status. I made some punctuation tweaks as I was reading and noted some other items below. I know red links are allowed, but they are always ugly to me, especially in the lead. Any chance of writing stubs for Euston and maybe Willie Mathews?

  • Opening sentence—isn't "on" a street more proper than "in"?
  • Odd use of "vice" in the lead. My understanding of the term is a destructive but socially-accepted habit like drinking or gambling. You seem to indicate homosexual acts were not quite so.
  • In the lead, you mix "clients" and "alleged clients" and I think some clear delineation is needed. Was there concrete proof of anyone being a client, and can you cite it?
  • "During the investigation, a fifteen-year old telegraph boy named Charles Thomas Swinscow was discovered to be in possession of 14 shillings, representing several weeks' wages." Unclear whether you are referring to several weeks of the boy's wages.
  • "... seventeen-year old George Alma Wright and Charles Ernest Thickbroom." How old was Thickbroom?
  • "On August 19, a further arrest warrant was issued ..." Suggest "another arrest warrant"
  • "By this time, Somerset had moved onto Hanover ..." Suggest "moved to" or "moved on to". There are more of these ("Hammond moved onto Belgium and Somerset ...") Is this a British English thing?
  • "Hammond moved onto Belgium and Somerset, through Newton, paid for Hammond to emigrate to the United States." This sentence doesn't make sense to me.
  • The phrase "on the Continent" is certain to be unfamiliar to non-British readers.
  • I understand that anyone who's anyone is now unlinking date/months, per Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(links)#Dates. The idea is that the value of removing link-clutter outweighs the small percentage of readers who have a date preference set or who actually care if it's day/month or month/day. Most readers will easily tolerate regional differences. --Laser brain (talk) 06:18, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

  • You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the sourcing and referencing with that in mind. I reviewed the article's sources as I would at FAC. The sourcing looks good.
Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 13:30, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Emily Dickinson

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The primary author of this article, Yllosubmarine, has listed the page at the big peer review page, but I know there are some talented peer reviewers in this project that may not see it. Working on an article about a subject that everyone seems to know about, like Miss Emily, is difficult. Whatever help you can give her. She's trying to get it to FA. --Moni3 (talk) 16:49, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Moni3 - If you've already gotten conflicting advice from more experienced editors, take mine with a grain...

  • Numbers larger than 13 are spelled out. I find it easier to read them as numerals.
  • Do you have any examples of this? I can go either way, but if it's difficult to read, then I have no problems changing them.
  • First line has eighteen hundred. I noticed it maybe four or five times throughout the entire article...Dickinson moved his family along with fifty-eight other men and their families just east of Northampton, Aunt Lavinia, who was twenty-one at the time, Emily would eventually send over three hundred letters, are just some I was able to find as I scanned through it once more. --Moni3 (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This sentence in "Life" is confusing as to who wrote the letter and to whom it refers: Since her mother was not available, she wrote in a letter to a confidante, Emily "always ran Home to Awe [Austin] when a child, if anything befell me. He was an awful Mother, but I liked him better than none.
  • I agree, it was too wordy. I've condensed it to: In a letter to a confidante, Emily wrote she "always ran Home to Awe [Austin] when a child, if anything befell me. He was an awful Mother, but I liked him better than none."
  • Where did Edward Dickinson go that he had to write home to his children?
  • He spent a great deal of time in Boston for the General Courts and also traveled elsewhere for work. The source doesn't say exactly where he was when he sent this letter, but I've added to the previous sentence so that it now says: Edward Dickinson emphasized the value of his children's education and kept track of their studies while he was away on business.
  • In "Influence and early writing" after Newton's death, you have "would like" in quotations. It fits without them, and there doesn't seem to be a reason those words are in quotations - it's not really POV, and it rather looks odd with them in.
  • Definitely; they're toast.
  • Why would her brother have to smuggle a Longfellow book into the house. Was it scandalous?
  • This is something I always wanted to expand on, but some of it is speculative since it doesn't come from Emily herself, so I've held back so far. Their father, being a late convert and a religious man, didn't care for many books outside of the Bible. There's one quote in the "is my verse alive" section that although her father bought her books, he begged her "not to read them – because he fears they joggle the Mind". Higginson reported that she told him this story twenty years after the fact and that the smuggling act happened when Emily was young and her older brother, who had already read the book, secretly gave her his copy. Perhaps too much information? The Bible isn't mentioned at all, I don't think, so I could add a little more about her father's protectiveness and her reading material if you think it pertinent.
  • Look, I have to say that the biography portion of the article is expertly written. I feel great affection and sadness for her toward the end at her death. I studied Dickinson as much as college sophomores can, back in the day, so I am somewhat familiar with her. To instill a personal connection to her through the article like that means it's quite well-written.
  • Thank you so much. :)
  • Ok, totally...Gilligan's Island theme song? I laughed out loud for ten minutes.
  • YES. This is something I learned in high school, I think, and it's so true. "Because I could not stop for Death" is hilarious if you have the right .wav files and a few drinks. ;)
  • Indeed. It is something I will have to try. Perhaps the development of an Emily Dickinson drinking game. I have to admit that I had "The Yellow Rose of Texas" stuck in my head for an hour after reading the article, but of course, with the more interesting lyrics. --Moni3 (talk) 19:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is the image of "Wild nights, wild nights!" handwritten by Dickinson, or by someone else? If by Dickinson, it might not be redundant to say it's in her own handwriting. It is quite bold writing if so.
  • Yup, that's hers; I've made that more clear in the caption. I've always wanted to add something about her handwriting, which changed drastically throughout her life (compare the two manuscript images, for example), but I thought that would be too quirky and off-topic for most readers. There are dozens of scraps of paper of her practicing her signature and penmanship on the back of recipes, poems, letters, etc. It's really quite amazing.

Most excellent luck on this article. I enjoyed it. --Moni3 (talk) 17:56, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And the Band Played On

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Would like to see what more should be included to get this eventually to GA or FA status. --Moni3 14:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)Moni3[reply]

Belovedfreak

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OK, here are some thoughts...
Lead

  • "The title of the book appears to be..." really needs a source, otherwise it's speculation.
  • "A review called it..." - which review? Could do with naming the reviewer & publication eg. "In a review for the Library Journal, Judith Eannarino called it..."

Subject

  • I would maybe say who Bill Kultz is to give some relevance/context. "Journalist Bill Kultz gave the keynote speech..."
  • "Sisyphean task..." POV maybe? I would just go with "were given the task"

The gay community

The medical community

The political and governmental agencies

[edit] The news media

  • "Many stories called AIDS a "gay plague"..." - citation? - also which stories? give some examples if possible.
  • the sentence beginning "In fact, Shilts recounts more than once..." is a little confusing. Maybe it's just me being stupid/tired but I didn't really get it. Plus, I would take out "In fact" - it's not really necessary. I would also change "how much is not reported" to "how little is reported".
  • "prompted mass hysteria across the nation..." citation? "Across the nation" could really be "across the United States" just to be clear. That whole sentence could do with a citation - the media erroneously reporting etc.

Criticism and recognition

  • "contrary to the expectations of Shilts himself" - citation?
  • The second paragraph has 6 citations which seems a little excessive & people will not like it. I've had this problem in articles before and I'm not really sure what the solution is. Maybe doing one <ref> tag with the 6 citation templates in? I'm not sure, I'll have to experiment...
  • "the New York Times commented..." who at the New York Times? They often have several writers writing reviews for the same thing, so could do with a name as the opinion may not be representative of the newspaper.
  • "Gay groups also criticized..." - do we know which groups in particular?

Gaetan Dugas as "Patient Zero"

  • 1st sentence is a bit unwieldy - any way of avoiding repetition of "who"?
  • Sentence beginning "It doesn't re-examine the Dugas story" is also a bit long.
  • I found the whole paragraph quite difficult, not having read the book, again maybe just me, I don't know. Maybe you could start by saying what patient zero means, then mention Dugas, then how it was discussed in the book, Shilts' assumptions etc.
  • The paragraph could do with some more citations.

After publication

  • "he got the HIV-positive diagnosis" - maybe a tad informal? I would maybe put "was diagnosed HIV positive". But, that could just be a personal preference.
  • "Upon his death he was eulogized for his work in And the Band Played On by Cleve Jones..." is not entirely clear. Makes it sound a bit like Cleve Jones eulogised him in a piece called And the Band Played On. I know it's obvious from the whole article, but the sentence is a little confusing.
  • Sometimes it says "Shilts reported" or "according to Shilts" but often it doesn't so it's sometimes hard to know which bits are findings from the books and which should be cited by independent sources. I apologise if I've asked for citations from bits that are clearly summarising the book. Anyway, hope this helps. I really hope someone else takes a look at it. --BelovedFreak 20:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Every part of the article under the "Subject" heading comes from the book. I included references. In claims I know sound POV, I made sure to statet that Shilts reported it. --Moni3 00:55, 16 October 2007 (UTC)Moni3[reply]
      • Ok, that's fine. I guess that's the way it should be with non-fiction/documentary stuff. As I said I'm not that familiar with this type of article, but that makes sense to me now. --BelovedFreak 16:43, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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