Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Barbara Gordon/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 01:39, 21 January 2008.

[edit] Barbara Gordon

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I'm nominating this article for featured article because I originally helped promote the article to GA Status. The article had been peer reviewed and I have corrected all the issues which came up in GAR. I believe the article meets the FA criteria.

  • Comments: --Reinoutr (talk) 10:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Article contains quite a bit of in-universe prose, even in the introduction (e.g. "Following her retirement as Batgirl in 1988, Gordon was crippled ..." and "Prior to her career as a vigilante, Barbara Gordon developed many technological skills.."). Please realize that there are more, these are just examples.
Y Done Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
    • References 70-86 contain extra "[" and "]" symbols for external links, should be removed
      • Comment: I've filled out the templates for citing episodes using Wikipedia:Citation_templates. As far as I can tell, if filled out the template properly, but the "[ ]" still appear. I am not sure how to correct this... Or perhaps I can use the cite_website template instead? Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 11:20, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Yes these templates can be a pain to work with. I fixed them for you now: [1]. The "episodelink" and "serieslink" values were only meant for Wikipedia articles, not for external links. You could only use the "url" value for that. --Reinoutr (talk) 12:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Y Done Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Reference 86 external link goes to the wrong location
Y Done Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose per comprehensivity concerns. I'm a bit worried that many of the books listed as references are not cited in the article.
Comment: Daniels, Les. DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World's Favorite Comic Book Heroes and Arant, Wendi. Benefiel, Candace. The Image and Role of the Librarian literally reiterate themes/quote which are already cited in the article by other sources. these can be previewed on google scholar if you would like to verify this claim. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 10:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I went back and added two interesting bits of info from The Image and Role of the Librarian which were not mentioned by other sources. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 23:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Many of these have valuable reliable information about the character. The ones that are cited need page numbers. Once source completely ignored is the Batman history by Les Daniels; I own the book and it provides a reasonable amount of information. As listed above, some of the prose needs to be less in-universe.
Y Done Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • A lot of the footnotes pass Ref 70 need publisher info (what site did they appear on?). Try to combine some of the smaller paragraphs.
Comment: the template for citing episodes at Wikipedia:Citation_templates does not require publisher info, but it does link to the website (tv.com) Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 00:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
You're citing a link, though, so use Cite Web and credit the website. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Y Done Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The long sections featuring quotes about The Killing Joke and people arguing for the character's mobility to be restored seem to give undue weight to criticism of the character developments. How did people react to her crippling in 1988? That's more relevant than what a multitude of modern critics think about the story now. I think you can do with removing the D'Orizio and Hudson quotes completely. The D'Orizio quote in particular seems tangential. You might be able to summarize and/or quote a small portion of Hudson's comments. The "critical and editorial commentary" needs to be restructured to be more encyclopedic; right now it seems more like an essay about the character being in a wheelchair and what that represents.
  • Try and cut down the "Birds of Prey" section a bit more" (the sentence about the Huntress joining is unnecessary for this article, for one; mention the character elsewhere if necessary).
Y Done Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • You don't need the "Alternate versions" section at all; move the details about All-Star Batgirl into the publishing section (to paraphrase Alan Moore, they're all imaginary stories; a Batgirl title is a Batgirl title being published by a notable real-world publisher by notable creators).
Y Done Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Place the "Alternative versions of Barbara Gordon" link under a "See also" section, or delete/merge there's no real-world notability to the entries. If you can address these comments contact me and I'll review the article again. I do think it's a good article overall, and I wish that more comics character articles were of this quality. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Y Done Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 03:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment: Unfortunately I do not own any of the books that are listed as sources. I was able to read portions on all of them which were cited in the article using google scholar. I have not tried using google scholar for the Batman History by Daniels, but if I can preview the book I'll add whatever I can.
I approached the quotes by D'Orizio and Hudson as a means to display frank reactions to the killing joke displaying both points of view. I also brought the issue to the Wikiprojects Comics page and the consensus (although small) was that it warrants inclusion in the article. I would personally prefer not to remove either completely, though I would agree to summarizing both. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 12:38, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Reply: I can source from the Daniels Batman book for you. I would recommend trying to get the others from a library if you can; Google book search often doesn't give you access to every page (but you were able to view all the pages that discussed Batgirl, then you can ignore me). I undertstand giving balance to the different reactions, but it's not the best way, especially since that D'orizio quote is more about how women are treated in comics in general. For an example on how to tackle this, I cited some information about the controversy surrounding the death of Jason Todd from a number of sources. Try and approach it like I did over there. Also, have you looked at mainstream media sources? You'd be suprised at what you can find. Go through time.com, nytimes.com, msnbc.com, bbc.co.uk, and guardian.co.uk for starters. Even if you come up empty, searching through mainstream news media should be your first course of action when looking for online sources. WesleyDodds (talk) 12:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Reply:I've gone to my local library and my college library as well and they don't have the best selection for comprehensive books on comics, much to my dismay! I was really hoping my school had daniels book when I was looking for it months ago, but no luck. In addition I have also tried looking through mainstream media website for information on Barbara Gordon, but so far I have come up with squat. I will do another run through on those sites you mentioned to be safe.Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I did another run through on mainstream news websites but they do not have any valuable information on Barbara Gordon. I found about 4 brief articles which (barely) mention her television adaptations. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 02:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: There are a awful lot of quotations, couldn't these be turned into prose?--Nydas(Talk) 10:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Reply: according to WP:QUOTE, As a matter of style, quotebooxes should generally be avoided as they draw special attention to the opinion of one source, and present that opinion as though Wikipedia endorses it; quoteboxes may be acceptable in certain circumstances, especially when the quote is itself notable, and a major part of the article's topic. This is the only reason I've been weary about turing the quotes into prose. One of the complaints in GAR was that there was no real world accountability for Barbara Gordon's claim as a female icon (Batgirl) and as a disabled icon (Oracle). The quotes selected in the article specifically reflect these issues in addition to the controversy of the characters mobility. My only concern is that changing quotes into prose may alter the tone of the subject matters, particularly in the "Critical and editorial commentary" section. I will look through the article to see which quotes can easily be changed into prose and I would appreciate more comments on this particular topic. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 11:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
2 quotes from the batgirl section of the publication history have been changed to prose. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 11:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
3 quotes from the killing joke section of the publication history have been changed to prose. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 11:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
That's better. Be careful about assuming that the character really is a disabled or female icon, though. If that were so, it should be possible to find more stuff from outside the world of comics.--Nydas(Talk) 18:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
as mentioned in the article and in many of the references, she is considered to be iconic, though this status is only casually mentioned by observers. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 23:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.