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Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Mark Satin

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Mark Satin

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Nominator(s): Babel41 (talk)


I am nominating this biography for A-Class review because I believe it meets all five A-Class criteria, and because I believe it is of compelling interest to those who care about military issues, political activism, and political thought. Its subject entered the public eye as a draft dodger leader during the Vietnam War, and proceeded to create Canada's (and arguably North America's) most significant draft dodger assistance organization. He spent the rest of his life trying to articulate a "visionary" but non-Marxist political philosophy that would inspire the U.S. to play what he felt was a more benign role at home and abroad. The article ends two paragraphs after he calls for mandatory national service (i.e., a draft) on Voice of America radio in 2004, nearly three decades after the Vietnam War.

I wrote the original stub article in 2004 and did the major expansion / revision in 2005. Here I have updated, revised, and expanded it by a factor of 15 in an effort to make it truly useful for readers and researchers for decades to come. On my own, I had it reviewed for substance by some of those familiar with some of the events discussed. I then put it through the FAC process, and entered nearly 100 changes suggested or inspired by my FAC reviewers. I hope you will enjoy reviewing it.

Note on citation style. I have retained the style I used in the 2005 revision (the original stub contained no references). It is a composite with the following major features: (1) first name before surname, as in the Bluebook; (2) all commas until the period at the end, as in the Bluebook; (3) no parentheses around dates or publishers (except around years of journals), as in the MLA Handbook; and (4) "p." or "pp." before page numbers, as is the practice of some American publishers of quality texts (see, e.g., Rosemarie Tong, Feminist Thought, Westview Press, 2nd ed., 1998, pp. 281-316). My principal goals here were – and are – clarity and ease of reading.

Note on links in the "References" section. I have linked authors and publishers here only if they are not linked anywhere in the text or in the "Publications" section; and I have only linked authors or publishers here on first mention. Babel41 (talk) 19:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk) 00:28, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I deeply appreciate your willingness to do this work. I'll try to make it worth your while. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The writing is excellent; the problems I'm seeing aren't fatal, but before we're done, I think some of the sources are going to have to go, and some of the writing needs to be toned down a bit or condensed.
Okay. I trust you. My goal (esp. after digesting Nikki's, Ed's, and your FAC comments) is to turn this into an entry that will last & be useful to researchers long after Satin's death. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "visionary" isn't forbidden in WP bios, but coming in the first sentence, it doesn't set a neutral tone.
  Done Agreed! Moreover, the article doesn't need it. I simply cut that whole phrase. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he has been called ...": in a newspaper whose slogan is: "To fear God, tell the truth and make money". Is there support somewhere for the idea that this is in some sense an expert or consensus position?
  Done For better or worse, the Daily Herald represents the views of tens of millions of Americans and is one of America's 100 highest-circulation daily newspapers, according to Wikipedia. But I've (a) taken the superlative out, and (b) added corroborating references from a variety of sources covering five decades. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "transformational,", etc.: See WP:LQ, and also my review in the recent FAC.
WP:LQ is very clear, thanks. I've proofread the Intro. and Personal Life sections, and will cover the rest tomorrow if my eyes hold out.
  Done All the text and all the references are now in LQ-style. - Babel41 (talk) 06:00, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "House of Anansi Press": isn't described in the lead, and is described as "then-fledgling", in the text. At the time Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada was published, did the company have more than one employee? Although "published" is a reasonable description according to dictionaries, Wikipedians are sensitive about the word and the concept ... that is, we try to use language that makes it clear whether something fits our notions of a "reliable source", which more often than not means the product of an establish publishing house with a reputation for a rigorous selection process and professional fact-checking. This isn't of course a criticism of the book.
  Done Anansi's evolution is not important to Satin's biography, so I simply cut the material about Anansi (including the "then-fledgling" phrase) from the "Manual for Draft-Age Immigrants to Canada" sub-section. It was indeed a reputable publisher by the time it brought out Satin's book; its initial founders, who ran the place for the first few years, were two well-known Canadian writers, Dennis Lee and Dave Godfrey; one of the books published before Satin's was by the already internationally acclaimed writer Margarat Atwood. Evidence of publication by Anansi can be found via the many references to the Manual in the body of my article - these include the New York Review of Books and the Cambridge Companion to Canadian Literature! And see the two linked references in my next comment. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "reports nearly 100,000 copies sold": has anyone other than the publisher said that?
  Done I was wrong; the article I cited does NOT attrribute the 100,000 figure to Anansi. And I found a recent article in the other leading Toronto newspaper that gives the same 100,000 figure. I now cite both newspaper articles together, first in my Intro. and then in the "Manual" sub-section, and I managed to find and include public links to both articles. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I suspect that the 100,000 figure includes sales of mimeograhed, bowdlerized, and pirated versions by U.S. anti-draft groups (that Anansi could have stopped if it wanted to). But it would require "original research" to prove this. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "anti-Vietnam War movement": See WP:DASH; I rewrote this, but you're welcome to revert if you like, if you also replace the hyphen by an en-dash.
  Done I decided to leave your rewrite because you are CLEARLY more in tune with Wikipedia's everyday rhetoric than I. I cannot help pointing out, though, that your construction, which includes the word "resistance," sounds slightly more politically radical than mine. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Quite right ... I self-reverted, but added the dash. - Dank (push to talk) 14:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is just a guess, but I think the quote from Satin's mother will be considered too long at FAC, and perhaps here at A-class review as well.
  Done I shortened it by 25% (one sentence out of four). I would hate to cut more, since much of Satin's behavior can be seen (and has been seen) as rebellion against his parents lasting many decades. And it is a great quote, embodying so much of what (the radical wing of) S's generation hated about their parents' attitudes and feelings. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "His Wichita Falls debate teacher, Roma Gilbert, writes ...": Concerning this source and many others, I think it might be helpful to read up on our policy about use of secondary vs. primary sources. At FAC, there's a higher (but still not well-defined) threshold called "high-quality sources", a standard that is at least considered for A-class as well.
  Done I totally get this, and I simply took the whole quote - the whole paragraph - out. The "Early years" sub-section doesn't need it, not when it ends with Satin's confessed sadness, as it does now. - Babel41 (talk) 04:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your work on this! I'll keep going after a couple more reviews come in, I want to see if I'm on the right track. - Dank (push to talk) 14:19, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment from the principal author: In anticipation of your and others' further comments, I have done tons of new work on this article (as you can see from its "History" page). I really hope other Military History reviewers give it a look. Although it is about an anti-war activist and theorist, it does NOT treat him as a hero or his causes as gospel. If anything, it (gently) reveals the soft underbelly of many idealists' hopes and dreams. I look forward to working with any comments any of you might care to provide. - Babel41 (talk) 06:00, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, we're happy to talk about the downsides of war all day long, that's not it ... we just don't have enough reviewers. There are a few articles that are getting more reviews than yours, but that's because people may feel confident with the material. You'll get a few more reviews before this closes, I expect. - Dank (push to talk) 11:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd rather someone else review the Explanations offered section and the paragraph in the next section that begins "Satin defined himself as a neopacifist"; I'm more comfortable reviewing narratives than critiques.
  • "isn't easy", "tired of" (quotes yours): quote marks are fine, and even necessary, when paraphrasing runs too high a risk of obscuring the meaning ... but it seems to me that it's not hard to paraphrase "isn't easy" and "tired of"; they aren't pregnant with meaning. Also consider paraphrasing other one- and two-word quotes.
  Done I couldn't paraphrase your two examples because I refer back to them in my parallelism two paragraphs on (and they were in fact carefully thought through by SUPA's spokesman and board). But I got rid of TWELVE two- and three-word quotes elsewhere in the article, and it reads better for it ... thanks. - Babel41 (talk) 22:12, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "RCMP": I recommend writing it out; then give the acronym.
  Done - Babel41 (talk) 22:12, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "According to a study of the Manual in a literary journal, some editions experienced a falloff in quality of typeface and paper stock and an increased politicization of some content.": Seems like too much detail.
  Done Agreed. I now end the sentence after "quality". The rest has been exterminated. - Babel41 (talk) 22:12, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your great work! Recovering from oral surgery. Over the next two days I'll be entering about 100 mostly tiny changes to make the text more perfectly compatible with MOS. I will then gather & enter ISBN numbers for all 73 book references, per Nikkimania's original suggestion. Ed, wait till you see all my NBSPs! - Babel41 (talk) 01:35, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My pleasure. I hate oral surgery. Like the drugs, though. - Dank (push to talk) 01:44, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comments above look good. - Dank (push to talk) 23:58, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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