Wikipedia:Featured article review/Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius/archive1

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

The article was removed 16:08, 1 July 2007.

[edit] Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at User talk:Jmabel and Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/GeneralForum - Atropos 00:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

This article was featured in April 2004, and I don't know if it was this way at the time or if it has degraded, but I strongly considered tagging it as reading like an essay and original research, and definitely would have if it wasn't a featured article (I'm not sure if I still should, I don't know the etiquette about that sort of thing). The plot summary, for example, analyzes the text rather than simply summarizing it. What's worse, the references that appear there are deceiving: they reference the story itself for the events that are described; none (or almost none, I may have missed something) are given for the analysis, which doesn't belong in the plot summary to begin with. The themes section is worse, every reference is also to the text. The next section is a bit of a trivia section, listing the many references made in the story. After that comes a completely unreferenced section about its place in Borges' life. Then comes the publication history, which isn't referenced with the <ref> tags like the rest of the article. After this are two lists of things inspired by the story and then a poor and improperly ordered External links section, which is one link that really belongs as part of the two previous sections. References is a subsection of the footnotes section, which is not normal style. Also, the references are deceiving in general: though there are 43 inline citations, only 16 of them are not to the story itself.

I love this story and love love Borges, but this article needs major work. Atropos 23:54, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I largely wrote this article, at a time when Wikipedia's standards for citation were quite different from what they are now. I am not currently very active in Wikipedia, and I have no particular willingness to go through and work on the article. I would consider myself genuinely expert on Borges: at that time, Wikipedia cared about such things. Now, Wikipedia seems more interested in seeing people cite someone else, even someone who (as often happens) honestly does not know whereof he or she speaks. This is, indeed, part of why I am much less involved.

The list of the many (mostly non-fictional) characters in the story and who they were is probably the best online guide to this thicket of mostly relatively unknown individuals. If people have now decided that is "trivia" and unencyclopedic, I think you are dead wrong, but I won't fight over it.

I did reread the section Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius#"Tlön…" in the context of Borges's life and works. I believe it is entirely accurate; I suggest that anyone with access to a biography of Borges should have no difficulty providing the citations that current Wikipedia standards require.

All Spanish-language publication information should be able to be confirmed from the Borges' Center's bibliographies, probably from the bibliography prepared by Annick Louis & Florian Ziche. As for the English-language translations, I don't know of an equivalent published bibliography, but I've had my hands on all of the relevant works, all of which are explicitly named in the text. I don't see what citation can possibly be needed beyond the book or magazine itself. I suppose someone could seek a citation for my claim that the Irby translation was the first to be published (that is, that there wasn't an earlier one of which I am ignorant).

I hope some of this is useful to whoever works on this. If someone has concrete questions for me, leave them on my user talk page and I'll do my best to help. But I am not currently keeping an eye on a watchlist, so that or an email is the only way you will get my attention (that is, I most likely will not be following discussion here). - Jmabel | Talk 05:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the list of references in the short story, as they are a big part of it. If they were just passing allusions the author expected the reader to know that would be different.

I wasn't around Wikipedia in 2004, but an encyclopedia is not a place to argue any interpretation, no matter how much of an expert you are or how supported that interpretation is by the text. Besides that, batty fringe flat-earth "theorists" think they're experts too; the fact that your claim is reasonable doesn't change things. The only issue with the article that I saw and that isn't easily fixed is the lack of citation. I'm sure it can be of current featured quality within the two weeks.

Thank you for participating in this discussion even though you're not very active anymore. By the way, I think Hurley might mention something about the first translation in his collected fictions; unfortunately I've lent my copy out, but I know the local library has it and I can check some time soon. Atropos 06:00, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I've checked Hurley's section "A Note on the Translation." He is nonspecific, but he states that the first translation of Borges appeared in 1948, that (I'm going from memory) around 12 more works by Borges were published between then and 1962, when two collections of his fiction were published in English, one by Irby and a partner and one by someone else. The one by someone else may have been published first, just because he doesn't specify and he lists it before he lists Irby's. I'll get more details when I have my own copy back. Atropos 03:08, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

• I fully agree with Jmabel's comments, and regard all the footnotes to the story itself as redundant, especially since it has been printed many times, in many languages, with different paginations. The list of mentions is the chief justification for having an article on this at all; we should do something for the reader, or why not just send him to Borges, who writes better than we do?

The following sentence is a real flaw: According to an article by Alan White, Williams College professor of philosophy, the Anglo-American Cyclopaedia actually exists and is more or less as Borges describes it, although it is a reprint of the 9th Edition of the Britannica, not (as the story has it) the 10th. There is no reason to source this in text - as opposed giving the reference to White's paper (which should, of course, be cited to where he published it); The existence of the Anglo-American Cyclopedia is not controversial, even if it is news. This sets aside the point, not made here but well known: the 10th edition of the Britannica is itself a reprint of the 9th. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:30, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing and factual accuracy (1c), focus and structure (4). Marskell 08:45, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Retain. I don't see any factual accuracy complaints but my own, now dealt with; White expresses himself somewhat obscurely, and I think the original editor may have misunderstood him. The philosophical implications of the story are, I believe, more or less consensus; all of them could be sourced from White's article, or others in the same issue of Variaciones Borges. I don't follow the complaints about structure. It would be a shame to lose so good, and so complete, an article from the Main Page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If they could be sourced, why aren't they? An article which states (in the plot summary section no less), "In a world where there are no nouns — or where nouns are composites of other parts of speech, created and discarded according to a whim — and no things, most of Western philosophy becomes impossible." completely without a source does not meet featured article criteria at all. It reads like an essay and original research. Atropos 23:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Delist per my above comments. Atropos 23:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• Remove This article has a bunch of lists which violate 1a - "Names deriving from this story" and "Inspiration for real world projects" are disguised trivia sections which need conversion into proper prose which ties it's subject cohesively together through the paragraphs. Also, the name of the former section needs "deriving" changed to "derived". Also 1c is in violation - ""Tlön…" in the context of Borges's life and works" has a lot of original research without verification which comments upon the works of Borge. LuciferMorgan 01:11, 19 June 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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.