Wikipedia:Featured article review/The Giver

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[edit] The Giver

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[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Novels/Worklist. Sandy 16:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Message left at Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/GeneralForum. Sandy 15:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

In the FAC discussion a year ago, some strong objections were raised (one of them mine). Checking, I see that nobody replied to the objections, and no one's done anything much about them either. The article had received three support comments, which I would without offense characterize as rather thin--they're short, with unspecific reasons to support and most of their space spent on minor objections. After Jun-Dai and I posted long Oppose comments with plenty of meat in them, nobody else supported. Both the Opposes basically say the article needs more cultural context, is poorly structured, and has unencyclopedic stuff in it . "... it should at least provide some scope in the opening passage with regards to the book's significance... We don't need a long overview of the plot in an encyclopedia... Lack of concision is the most critical problem. All of the FAs on books are more concise... a section with lesson plans is totally redundant (Wikipedia is not a how-to guide) ... no excuse for this kind of aggressive POV in an FA." Please take a look, there's more. I'm surprised Raul featured the article based on that discussion, I hadn't noticed he did. I stand by my FAC objections, and would add today that the weak structure and lack of context seem linked to the weakness of the section called "Major themes": ok, I haven't read The Giver, but considering the rest of the article, how can color, music and "a motif of nudity" possibly be its major themes? It's ... unreasonable. The nominator and — I assume — main author, Anville, has told me he doesn't have time to work on it at present and encouraged me to take it here for more eyeballs.[1], [2], [3], [4] The criteria I invoke are 1 and 2b: I don't think it exemplifies our best work, or is comprehensive. It lacks major aspects, notably cultural context: see especially Jun-Dai's analysis and comparison with other literary FAs. Bishonen | talk 15:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC).

  • I'm inclined to agree with the nominator. The article is certainly well written on the clause level, but a shift in emphasis from plot details and—ahem—the trivial, tenuous section on school lessons, would be welcome. A deeper cultural context, e.g., in the "Themes" section, which is pretty weak, might make this FA material. Have the contributors read Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)? Tony 12:24, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I had a look at it and am a bit surprised at the strong criticisms. This seems like a truly excellent article. It is as sensitive as possible without becoming POV, and very well written. The material about how the book has been used in schools is slightly tangential but is not a how-to guide (no one could use it for that purpose; at least I couldn't). I found it to be interesting info about how this YA book is actually used in the educational system where it evidently has such a strong niche. Bear in mind that much of the notability of the book relates to its popularity as a school text, rather than to its place in a canon of high literature, or even in a science fiction canon. It's clear that the underlying themes are to do with the repression of emotion, the futility of attempting to avoid, or protect people from, potentially painful experience, etc., and that the "themes" of colour, nudity, etc., all fit with this. Maybe this aspect could be changed just slightly so that these are described as "motifs", or something, but it did not throw me at all, so I left it alone for now. I'm surprised that there is no comparison with Brave New World, but of course it would have to be attributed rather than original research. Otherwise, I did a few minor copyedits, but couldn't see any need for major changes. Metamagician3000 08:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Agree with nominator. After going through it I feel there are parts that are poorly written. The Major Themes section is unsourced and smells of original research. Other parts of the article are unsourced as well. There seems to be a dubious source for the 'post-modern' sentence (more about that is on the article's talk page). The article goes on many lengthy tangents that need to be trimmed extensively or removed. Examples:

  • The Allen Say story in parenthesis. Distracting and only loosely relevant.
  • "City Reads" paragraph. Do we really need to list each city?
  • The "For instance, 50 children . . . this profession is looked down upon in the book" sentence. Isn't the "logical lapses" quote that follows sufficient?
  • The Science and Mathematics section. It reads like a math lesson.
  • The long paragraph about the book's controversy in Blue Springs, Missouri. Why is so much devoted to one specific instance of controversy?

Article needs to be restructured and rearranged. For example, the "Allusions/references from other works" section is almost useless, and its parts should be moved elsewhere. The "Ambiguity" section should be moved to the end of the Plot summary section or around there. The Classroom use section can probably be consolidated into one succinct section after all the fat is trimmed. There are too many parenthetical side comments throughout the article. Punctured Bicycle 01:18, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Main FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (2b), structure and focus (5). Marskell 16:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove per my comments above. Punctured Bicycle 01:12, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove. Well, this has been kicking around so long I thought I'd review it myself. Lack of concision is indeed the biggest problem. If we are pointed down in an article six times, there's a good chance sections need to be merged for clarity. The plot summary is too long and yet it doesn't actually detail the ending so that we can understand the section on ambiguity (which arrives well after). The themes section is also off-target—motifs, not themes are described. I wouldn't call the lesson plans totally out of place as this appears to be a major work on syllabi, but they should be described much more briefly. Finally, there's OR phrasing here ("Of course, Lowry's futuristic setting means that this particular young adult book can only address "contemporary topics" in an allegorical fashion, a point which raises questions of its own"). Some work obviously went in to this one and if someone who has read it were to reengage the article it can surely be brought back up. The refs are there to do it (though they need formatting). Marskell 12:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Remove certainly not "compelling or brilliant"; I had to force myself, on the third try, to plod through it. Agree with Marskell. Sandy 12:21, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
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