Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Thomas Pynchon

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[edit] Thomas Pynchon

"Smell'd that Smoak, figur'd you'd be needing something to nibble on," the doughty Mrs. W. greets them. (Mason & Dixon, chapter 28)

Partial self-nomination. I wrote big chunks of this, though many of them have been chopped up, rearranged and generally improved since then. (If I listed all the users who made good and important contributions, I'd be sure to slight somebody and forget their name, so I'll just make a blanket acknowledgement here.) I posted this to peer review and got one comment, which I addressed. It is as comprehensive and NPOV as we could make it, and it has enough parenthetical documentation to satisfy even the footnote fetish of a Wikipediphile like myself. Anville 20:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Very good article that I hope to support. I'd like to see the literary-style citations converted to the Cite.php style (see Dixie (song) or Krazy Kat for ideas on how to do this, with the footnotes in one section and the list of references in another). I would also like to see a citation for this sentence: "However, the full Pulitzer panel vetoed their decision, describing the novel as 'unreadable', 'turgid', 'overwritten', and in parts 'obscene'." Andrew Levine 21:32, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
  • The sentence is now cited. (I didn't do it, but I should note that it got done.) Anville 06:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• Object only for failure to mention the Irwin Corey incident, one of the very few early occasions when Pynchon received mass media attention. Monicasdude 22:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC) Support Monicasdude 13:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Done, I think. Anville 06:33, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• Support- I didn't realize those were footnotes at first-I never have seem them done like that before, but it works perfectly fine. AndyZ 00:03, 27 February 2006 (UTC) *Object per Andrew Levine's comment - no inline citations, 2(c) of FA criteria. AndyZ 00:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• Response: Harvard referencing is listed as an appropriate style of in-line citation at Wikipedia:Cite sources. It is much "cleaner" than the footnote style, though I agree that there could be some internal and/or external hyperlinking (to online sources) within the body of the text (if that is allowable under Wikipedia conventions). Abaca 01:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
  • I'll poke in to agree that the Harvard style references are totally okay. It's a perfectly fine way to meet the requirement for inline citation. Monicadude's objection should be addressed though. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:19, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• Support. I still prefer the Cite.php and would rather see it used here. Maybe I will add it later. Andrew Levine 22:17, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
• Object - I would like to see footnotes and inline citations; also, some sections are a bit lengthy. Perhaps breaking them down into sub-section or "main articles"? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:53, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I transitioned the article over to the Cite.php methodology, using Krazy Kat as my model. I also expanded the bit about "hypertext fiction", since the article on that topic doesn't really explain why Pynchon matters in that context. (To do it right, we'd need a new article somewhere about "hypertextual literary criticism" or some such, and wading through the lit-crit chaff to find the wheat for that is a little intimidating even for me.) The "Recurring themes" section is now subdivided. I couldn't think of a good way to split any of the others, though since the whole page is only now 34 Kb (including references and notes), I don't think we're at the point where we need sub-articles. Call me when it hits 45 Kb, and we'll talk!  :) Anville 07:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, disregard all that. I really don't want to get into an edit war over what content to include and which reference style to use. When I am less irritated, I will try to work on this in a sensible fashion; for now, I'll just fume quietly. Anville 15:25, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
      • OK, I'm done fuming; as I expected, after a good night's sleep it all matters less. Feel free to read my rough draft to see how my own stylistic quirks play out. Anville 07:56, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

• Support An excellent article about a major literary figure. I'm not fussed about the citation style issue, just so long as its clear where the information comes from. Lisiate 23:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
• Object I am blanket objecting all nominations that fail to use the new cite format. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
  • The mediawiki citation style, while nice, is not the only acceptable style. This objection is flatly invalid and future objections for this reason will also be flatly ignored. Raul654 07:17, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Sigh. Anville 15:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
    • Withdrawn, I caught article in middle of bad timing. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:30, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
• Object, though it's close.
  • There should be a summary under "Biography" and "Media scrutiny"
  • While I have no problem with the idea of using that style of citation, there should be consistency in format and tone (remove stuff like "see, for example"), and I think the external links ought to be moved to the references section
  • If the see alsos are linked to elsewhere, they should be removed. If not, they should be.
• Tuf-Kat 18:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I added a summary paragraph to "Media scrutiny". If anyone else cares to write one for "Biography", they're welcome, although I think that such a paragraph would basically amount to repeating the lead immediately after the lead (not so helpful). I went through the parenthetical citations and adapted them to <span> tags, so that clicking the citation automagically transfers the reader to the appropriate place in the "References" section. (This has the advantage that external links only need to be checked and fixed in one place; it also makes the citations look more uniform.) I removed a few extraneous "see" and "see also" particles and generally tried to make the referencing consistent. However, I think the "for example" with regard to the Nobel Prize comment should stay, since in that case, the comment being referenced is one repeated by many, many sources. The article provides three sources, marginally more distinguished than the rest, out of the great mass all saying the same thing.

According to the Citations style guide, it is appropriate to keep external links and whatnot which pertain to the topic and may be of interest but which have not been used as specific sources in a section entitled "Further reading" or "External links".

Finally, I worked the bullet points in the "See also" section into the text, and removed the section. Anville 21:28, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • Technical question re. referencing. Is there a way to create a "[back]" command at the end of each footnote which returns you to the point in the text you were at, instead of having to scroll down again from the top? Abaca 09:51, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
      • I'm not aware of a way to do this; at least, I haven't seen it done on any other article. I suppose one could the same system in reverse: put <span> tags in the article text and use wikilinks like [[#note_1|back to note 1]] in the References section. The trouble is that we use some sources (like Royster 2005) more than once. Cite.php has facilities for handling this, but I don't know how to work it out in Harvard style. Hitting the "back" button in one's browser is probably simpler, and as far as I know it works for everybody. Anville 19:28, 23 February 2006 (UTC)