Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fantastic Universe

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 promoted 18:13, 25 August 2007.

[edit] Fantastic Universe

Passed GA. I've added some additional background information, and gone through to try to get it to FA standard; I think it's ready to be looked at. Thanks for all comments. Mike Christie (talk) 15:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Comment Is there a reason why there's no {{Infobox Magazine}}? 17Drew 21:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of that infobox; I think it can get a bit big and clunky. Is it a requirement? I don't mind adding it; it's just an aesthetic choice on my part. Mike Christie (talk) 22:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Only about 16.3 kB. Are you sure its comprehensive? I agree with 17Drew that there should be an infobox. --Kaypoh 10:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I've added the infobox; I used the image that was already there. I have all the issues so I can add another scan if more are needed. Re comprehensiveness: yes, I think it's fairly comprehensive. Is there anything specific you had in mind? It wasn't one of the most prominent magazines of its day; there were at least half-a-dozen better known sf magazines at the time. It won no awards and didn't carry much ground-breaking fiction. Mike Christie (talk) 10:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Reception? --Kaypoh 15:01, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Critical reception, I take it? It would be interesting to get a sense of current opinions of the magazine amongst sf readership, but I don't think there will be any contemporary sources for this that could be cited. At that time it wasn't usual for review columns in magazines to review other magazines, and I would think that Fantastic Universe received no critical attention outside the field of sf. There are probably passing comments in fanzines, but in addition to being impossible for another editor to verify, any quotes from fanzines are the opinions of the editor, and I don't think would be reliable sources for overall critical reception. The best sources for the relative critical importance of sf magazines tend to be survey works written by researchers, and memoirs (etc.) of writers who were closely involved. Ashley, Tuck and Nicholls express opinions, and I haven't included all of them, but they're represented -- e.g. the comments about the quality reducing later in the magazine's life. As for memoirs, I've looked through what I have and found nothing of interest except the del Rey quote, which is included. It wasn't one of the major mags, so memoirs tend to ignore it in favour of Astounding, F&SF, Galaxy, and If. Mike Christie (talk) 18:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Support but with two observations. (1) I don't know so I'm asking: should every instance of Fantastic Universe be italicized? Only the first two instances currently are. (2) The parts about quality of fiction across different editors is a little concerning. This kind of thing seems subjective, however, it is stated in the article as fact supported by footnotes: "under Santesson's tenure the quality declined", "maintained the standard of the fiction", "quality of the fiction generally fell during his period". I'd feel more comfortable if this was presented as an opinion supported by footnotes like "In bookx, SFHistorianx wrote that under editorx tenure the quality declined", "Criticx found that editorx maintained the standard of the fiction" and so on. --maclean 06:10, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I think they should all be italicized, so I've gone ahead and made that change. With regard to the quality, I take your point about the tone of this. I am away from my refs until tomorrow evening, but I think the opinion is pretty much universal to all the commentators. I'll take a look and then try a rephrase based on what I find, and will post here when done. Mike Christie (talk) 12:06, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I've now added a ref to the lead and below that gives specific quotes from three sources that state opinions about the magazine's quality. Let me know if this doesn't address the issue. Mike Christie (talk) 12:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - Nonfree Image:FantUnivNov54.jpg was too high-resolution, which I've fixed. Its rationale is still pretty sparse, though, and needs to include all the information requested at WP:FURG. —Angr 16:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I've updated the rationale; let me know if I need to add more. Thanks for fixing the resolution. Mike Christie (talk) 18:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for now. The article is close to FA, but not quite there yet for the following reasons:
  • "Fantastic Universe was a U.S. science fiction magazine published in the 1950s" Technically, it was also published in the 1960s for three months. I can't think of any way to express this that wouldn't sound odd.
  • "digest format", "American News Corporation", "Great American Publications" should probably all be linked
  • "Along with the increase in science fiction in book form came a flood of new magazines: from a low of eight active magazines in 1946, the field expanded to twenty in 1950, and a further twenty-two had commenced publication by 1954." I'm assuming these figures all refer to just the US. Although it's stated in the first sentence of the paragraph, I would make it clearer in this sentence that the numbers do not include non-American magazines.
  • "he first issue included stories by Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, and the magazine kept a fairly high quality through Merwin's departure after a year, and a brief period of caretaker editorship by Beatrice Jones. Margulies took over the editor's post with the May 1954 issue and maintained the standard of the fiction." and "The quality of the fiction generally fell during his period at the helm,[1] though this was not entirely his fault—there were a great many other magazines competing for stories by the top writers." I agree with Maclean that these PoV's needs to be attributed to someone.--Carabinieri 03:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I've tweaked the wording to say that it began publishing in the 1950s; the actual dates follow immediately so I think this works. I've made those links -- the latter two are redlinks, but I agree they would be good to have articles for, especially American News Corporation. I added "U.S." to make it "a flood of new U.S. magazines", so I hope that addresses that. I've also attributed the comments on quality specifically to Tuck. Does that address your concerns? Mike Christie (talk) 11:02, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. Support.--Carabinieri 14:38, 24 August 2007 (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.