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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/R. V. C. Bodley/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 promoted by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 17:41, 29 June 2015 [1].

R. V. C. Bodley

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Nominator(s): Freikorp (talk) 09:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the British Army officer, author and journalist. After successfully nominating this article for GA, DYK and A-Class Military History, as well as having a peer review and the infobox image listed as the POTD, I believe this article is ready for FAC. Freikorp (talk) 09:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • Support on prose per standard disclaimer. I've looked at the changes made since I reviewed this for A-class. These are my edits. (See? That wasn't so bad.) - Dank (push to talk) 16:39, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support

  • Did some copyediting, seen here
  • Inconsistancy:<ref> tags and {{sfn}} tags, and as per WP:MOS, you should use one or the other.
  • The other four articles i've had pass through FAC use both, and I don't think i've had someone mention this at FAC before. Can you point out where in WP:MOS it says to only use one or the other? Thanks. Freikorp (talk)
  • You should add isbns or oclcs (for older works) to two of the sources in the Bibliography.
  • I'm guessing since you using the same London Gazette issue over and over, you should put it with the other references and put page numbers for it in the citations.
  • One issue of the London Gazette is used twice. The other 6 citations to the gazette are from different issues. in any case, I don't know how to format an sfn for a work that does not have an author, which none of the Gazette articles do. If you want me to do all the rest, can you format one of them for me so I know how to do it? Thanks. Freikorp (talk)

Well, that's all I could find for now. Thanks, Tomandjerry211 (Let's have a chat) 21:20, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Images is appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:01, 9 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comment "foreign awards" seems a little odd for a title. Timothyjosephwood (talk) 20:32, 3 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm fair enough, i've renamed it 'Awards' and merged the award he got from his native country with it. Freikorp (talk) 05:56, 4 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments I made some copyedits and overall the article is well-written and very informative. I have one remaining issue: the sentence " Bodley worked on the script for the 1938 film A Yank at Oxford.", in the first paragraph of the section "Later life". It succeeds a few sentences about another film script, and thus I could see confusion that Bodley reused the Chaplin script for this 1938 film. Perhaps consider saying "Bodley also worked on the..." or "Later, Bodely worked on the...", or some similar variant. ɱ (talk · vbm) 14:51, 10 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I added the word 'also' as suggested. Cheers. Freikorp (talk) 04:51, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, sounds good then.--ɱ (talk · vbm) 11:20, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. I think what you have is well-written and flows pretty well. I think there are a few areas that could be fleshed out a little more.

  • I wonder if it would be useful to give even a two or three-word description of who Gertrude Bell and Sir Thomas Bodley were. we know they are significant, because they are mentioned in the article and wikilinked, but I had to click over to their articles to find out why I should care about them.
  • Excellent suggestion. I actually added more than two or three words for each. Let me know if you think it is too much and i'll trim it back. Freikorp (talk) 06:28, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It might also be useful to know in this article that his father was an author - he seems to have followed partially in his father's footsteps.
  • Mentioned that his father was a civil servant and author. Freikorp (talk) 06:39, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there any overall analysis of his writings? In many biographies of authors, information is given about what makes their works stand out. Are there recurring themes, etc, in his fiction?

Karanacs (talk) 18:52, 11 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have a look through newspaper sources and see if any book reviews give an analysis of his overall work or at least his last few books; i'm sure I can scrape something together. Freikorp (talk) 06:39, 14 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Karanacs: Unfortunately I couldn't find any overall analysis of his work (I have offline copies of all the newspaper sources used in the article and I went through all of them), though I did find some tidbits on how he wrote his books, which I added to the 'Later life' section. Let me know if you have any more comments. Thanks. Freikorp (talk) 10:34, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I like the changes in the beginning - it was easier for me to follow his family ties and place them into context. I realized looking over the article again that there are multiple facts cited to Bodley's own writings. In a few cases, these are explicitly attributed to the book, but in others they are not. At the very least, I would attribute this to his opinion/his book: "though he was regarded as too old for active service in the infantry".
I'm not going to oppose this, because I think you've done an excellent job of relating the facts about his life in an engaging manner. The only quibble I have is that I don't think one gets quite the understanding of how important his work actually was. You do mention one book review, but only that it was favorable. Did the reviewer point out anything special about the book or the writing? There appears to be another review in the NYT in 1964 for The Messenger (at least according to a Google Books search). There's also a review here and more are referenced if I search for "R.V.C. Bodley" and "literary criticism". Some of the snippets in the Google cache make it look like there might be at least some info about audience, etc. This may very well be information that you've already seen and rejected as not having anything useful to say. It may be that the kind of stuff I'd like to see doesn't exist at all (which is a shame for such a notable author). Karanacs (talk) 16:24, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've attributed the statement you mentioned to him. I've also fleshed out the review you mentioned as well as another one. I'll have a look for further reviews. Freikorp (talk) 05:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Karanacs: Went through all my sources again and added another review of one of his books as well as some general information all throughout. Have a look. :) Freikorp (talk) 12:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Great detective work. I'm pleased that is't a bit more well-rounded now. Karanacs (talk) 19:00, 19 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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