Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Julia Stiles

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[edit] Julia Stiles

Self-nomination. After a time on WP:PR (archived here) with no unfavorable remarks save the absence of photographs (since remedied by User:Niteowlneils and User:Rossrs--thank you, gentlemen!), I'm nominating it here. It's thorough about her and her career, has a detailed bibliography and links to other pages, has been wiki linked to other articles, has a quick reference table to her film roles, and has been appropriately categorized. I looked through the current list of featured articles for another actor to compare this to and didn't see one. Maybe this can be the first. PedanticallySpeaking 18:14, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

• Support great article. the lead section (the very top and beginning) could be a bit longer, but it is pretty good anyway and everything else is great. nice work! --Lan56 04:20, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: The lead picture is the work of professional photographer Jeff Vespa. IANAL, of course, but I doubt this qualifies as fair use, as is suggested by the image tag. You might want to ask for permission to publish the picture under the GFDL through http://www.jeffvespa.com/contact.php. --Plek 20:33, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• I don't think it's ready. I don't think it's long enough. Don't count that as an actual objection; it's just an opinion. Everyking 02:01, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Comment - I think the length of the article is appropriate for a 24 year old actress who is still at the beginning of her career. I applaude the effort and the attitude that has gone into the editing of this article. There are thousands of articles on contemporary celebrities here, many are little more than fansites, many are strongly tainted with POV, some are just badly written, and almost none of them have references. I would love to see this become a featured article (as you said "the first" - you're right, there aren't any in this category) as an example of what can be done with a bit of thought and a bit of care. I think the lead paragraph needs to be expanded as a summary of what follows - that should be easy to fix. What is missing from the article is Julia Stiles' own thoughts. What are her ambitions as an actor? Who are her influences? While other people are quoted - and this is excellent -there needs to be some input from the subject herself so that a sense of her personality is conveyed. I think the photo problem that Plek highlighted needs to be addressed and I'll have a look at that. I'm sorry I didn't mention these things while you had this on Peer Review - I didn't think of them at the time. Rossrs 10:01, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've juggled the photos about, removed the one that may not be fair use and added a DVD cover. This is just as a "test". If you don't like it, or if you are seeking permission to use the original photo, please let me know and I will revert it. cheers Rossrs 10:28, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I thank Rossrs for his work with the photographs and for his praise. In response to his comments, I put in a quote from Stiles from her Guardian piece and one of the critical quotes up in the lead. I'm not sure about expanding the lead, though, as I don't want to make it too long. Usually my leads are rather spartan, "Jane Doe (January 1, 1950-March 8, 2000) was an American widget inspector". Here I tried to make a concise summary, mentioning a couple of her films, just to let people get a basic idea of who she was because that's all a lot of people want, a capsule biography, and who aren't going to read through the whole thing. That said, I'll ponder on how to improve that lead.
Finally, Rossrs's remark about the length vis a vis her age calls to mind the words of Mr. Erich Segal: "What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant?" PedanticallySpeaking 16:04, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Support now. I like the changes that have been made. There is now a stronger sense of what type of person she is, rather than just a run down on her acting roles. Rossrs 08:46, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Comment - I'm not keen on this quantity of references to magazine articles, etc, that will date very quickly. Are you planning on maintaining it yourself, Ped? Deb 17:37, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Deb, for looking through the article.
As for the references the trouble is there aren't books on her, like so many people profiled herein. I tried to only cite more substantive pieces I encountered, trying to stick to ones where there were good quotes or facts, noting in the biblio what's in each article. I would note that these seemingly ephermal materials are exactly the types of materials that Current Biography, a standard reference work, cites in its articles.
As for books, one is cited, a cut-and-paste quickie bio for kids, plus the profile in the reference work Newsmakers.
When I had other articles up for featured status I was criticized for not having references. I don't think one can cite too much.
Ave! PedanticallySpeaking 17:47, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't really looking for book titles either! Deb 18:08, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Its really good and I anticipate supporting, but one thing I've noticed is that all (but one) of the comments about her by reviewers are positive. Isn't there something negative about her? - Taxman 16:41, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

There are a couple quotes in the film section from critics saying she's not a natural comedic actress, quotes specifically added to try to counterbalance the positive nature of the others. From what I have seen (having looked at scores of articles in ProQuest, Ebsco, and elsewhere), her press has been almost uniformly positive. PedanticallySpeaking 17:06, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

I had seen that. If there is nothing more, there is nothing more. As long as you have looked. - Taxman 02:53, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

• Support Brookie 18:44, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support kaal 04:00, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support. The writing I could conceive as POV appears to be contributed to an actual source. Good job.--ZayZayEM 08:29, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Both PedanticallySpeaking and I have added bits to the lead since the 'too short' comment was made. Also, note that the lead is longer than actor FA Ian McKellan (tho' shorter than the only other actor FA Humphrey Bogart, but that's arguably too long, but supported by the length of the rest of the article). Niteowlneils 22:54, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Support I saw the article before the massive edits as well as after, and I think it's quite ready to be featured. Mike H 00:05, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
• Support - looking good now Brookie 10:21, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)