Template:Did you know nominations/Nautical fiction

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Miyagawa (talk) 20:17, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Nautical fiction

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• ... that Melville's Moby Dick follows in a nautical fiction tradition which was started by James Fenimore Cooper's The Pilot?

• ALT1:... that the genre nautical fiction includes literary fiction like Moby Dick popular novels like the Hornblower series, and novels that blur the lines, like the Aubrey-Maturin series?
• Reviewed: Wrapped up Template:Did you know nominations/List of works by Georgette Heyer

Created by Sadads (talk), User:Rwood128, and User:Mad Hatter. Self nominated at 12:30, 7 March 2015 (UTC).

• This looks promising and seems technically ok but I'm not liking either of the hooks. The first hook makes a strong claim for The Pilot which just seems to be the opinion of particular critics while the second makes some fuzzy claims for sub-genres which also seem too opinionated. Please see English/British Naval History to 1815: A Guide to the Literature which has a long chapter about nautical fiction and which summarises several analyses such as The Sea in English Literature and which says "Many have placed the famous Anglo-Saxon poem as an early sea story". Perhaps the comment about there being at least twenty Nelson clones – Bolitho, Hornblower, & co. – might make a hook? More anon. Andrew D. (talk) 13:20, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

  Thanks for the additional source @Andrew D:: unfortunately, I am having to put a hold on developing this article until this summer; I am overloaded with several work, life, and Wikimedia work. In part, I am trying to distinguish between the scope of this article (which is exclusively looking at prose-based fiction that developed as a distinct focus on nautical experience/topics) as opposed to the more general Sea in culture which discusses how the theme of oceanic travel is found throught literary record (the A-S poetry for instance). In part I am wading into a debate, but its a debate where everyone agrees that the conventional definition of nautical fication is the "sea novel" from the Marryat-Cooper, Moby Dick-Conrad, Forestor/O'Brian line of fiction, but then each scholar tries to expand the definition to include a much wider set of material for individual studies without any of these further definitions really agreeing. For a Wikipedia article, I think the conventional scope is enough, with a larger "Sea in literature" article relevant as an intermediary between the Sea and Culture and Nautical fiction article in scope. I would appreciate if you tried working in the material to the articles! Sadads (talk) 14:16, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I would have tried.., Did you know that Nautical fiction goes back thousands of years to works such as Homers Odyssey, but is considered in modern times to have begun with James Fenimore Coopers, The Pilot..? But there aren't references. My computer time is limited so I can only make the suggestion and leave it to ye're selves. @Andrew Davidson, Sadads, Rwood128, and Mad Hatter: ~ R.T.G 14:01, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

• @RTG: I will take care of this next week, been traveling alot for GLAM-Wiki 2015 and other TWL activities. I have some time this next week (hopefully) to follow up on this. Sadads (talk) 02:33, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

• Comment Hope you don't mind that I just disambiguated "The Pilot" in the original hook in case some version of it should be used. Also Moby Dick is spelled Moby-Dick in the WP article, and the links to the other titles are to redirected pages. Shouldn't links in a DYK be direct (or piped) when possible? w.carter-Talk 20:46, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

• @W.carter: Thanks! Sadads (talk) 14:16, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

• Here's another hook suggestion. If more source support is needed, please see The real master and commander. Andrew D. (talk) 13:02, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

ALT2:... that some of the most popular nautical fiction works, including those about Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey, were based upon the real adventures of the "sea wolf" – Lord Cochrane?

@Andrew Davidson: I like the alt! Definitely fits our scope, and does a good job; I did a few small tweaks from "classic nautical fiction" to "popular nautical fiction": some people would argue that the idea of a "classic of a genre" is misleading, in that infers some type of cannonical value in literature more generally (as if modelling it). O'Brian is creeping his way into the literary canon because of his style, themes, and the intertextual referenciality (its very post-modern thematically and representationally, despite the Austen-like prose) , but I would be very surprised if we ever see a consensus on Hornblower as a "classic". Thanks for the patience and the williness to help find a hook/sourcesSadads (talk) 14:16, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

• What! Hornblower not a classic? My world just shattered. w.carter-Talk 18:12, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

• @W.carter: Hahaha! Indeed! The hornblower novels tend to be used as evidence for popularity, and changes in the genre, but rarely treat them as more than "popular reads"; on the other hand O'Brian and most of the other authors in the article (except, perhaps Marryatt) often get additional analysis outside of the cultural studies/pop culture context. Its kind of how I would love to be able to call David Edding's Belgariad as "classic" fantasy, in that I have met a number of people who love it, found it a very accessable introduction to the genre, and its one of their favorite recommendations for people, but you will never see it listed on the "best fantasy lists" alongside Discworld, Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings, and hardly ever see it included in the critical discussions of fantasy fiction. Sadads (talk) 18:50, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

• New reviewer needed; since Andrew D. provided ALT2, he can't also review it. BlueMoonset (talk) 23:05, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

• I like the ALT2 hook. I'm assuming it refers to information in the second paragraph under "masculinity and heroism", which has an inline citation. However, I couldn't see where Thomas Cochrane was referred to as Lord Cochrane or the "sea wolf" in the text. Would those need to be included for this hook to comply? SojoQ (talk) 00:06, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

A new reviewer has arrived

I will be reviewing this article according to WP:WIADYK

New ✓ Pass

a) ✗ Article created 18:11, 26 January 2015. Given the nomination date of 7 March, it fails this sub-criteria. Y As shown by Fuebaey article was a draft and moved to mainspace on 3 March, article falls within this category.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:07, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

b) ✗ As a non-new article the article must be expanded fivefold within seven days of the date listed as nominated, therefore I have to evaluate the change in the article for a seven day period, in this case from 7 March (per the nominators claimed start date of expansion on 7 March per

In the current nominations section find the subsection for the date on which the article was created or on which expansion began, not the date on which you make the nomination.

to 14 March.

(Honestly it appears that expansion actually began on 3 March with this edit which would have made the evaluation period between 3 and 10 March.)

Given this 7 to 14 March period, the article began at 17123 characters of prose (embedded list do not count for expansion purposes) and was expanded to 21871 characters of prose, meaning that the article was expanded by 27%.

c) Y Article was not an unsourced BLP

d) Y Article was not worked on exclusively in the talk page, or at article for creation, or in a draft namespace Y Article was in draft space from between 26 January to 3 March 2015. --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:07, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

e) Y Article does not appear to have been on the main page on "in the news" or "on this day" sections.

f) Y Article does not appear to have been translated from another wiki

g) Y Article is not a Good Article, nor was it promoted within the past seven days of the nomination

-pause/break in review- --RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:05, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Long enough ✓ Pass

a) Y Article is greater than 1500 characters of prose.

b) Y Content as of 14 March does not appear to have any public domain content

c) Y Not a primarily list article

ALT 1 Cited hook ✗ Fail

a) Y Although the hook elements are through out the article

b) ✗ Not all elements are cited in the 14 March version of this article

ALT 2 Cited hook ✓ Pass

a) Y Hook contained within the running sentence

However, as the genre has developed, models of masculinity and the nature of male heroism in sea novels vary greatly: the Marryat's heroes focus on gentleman-liness modeled off ideal captains like Thomas Cochrane and Horatio Nelson; Forester's Hornblower is a model hero, presenting bravery, but inadequate at life ashore and beyond the navy and with limited emotional complexity; while O'Brian's Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin model complex masculinities built around their friendship, a tension between naval life and shore life, and complex passions and character flaws.

b) Y Hook cited to a reference "Susan Bassnett "Cabin'd Yet Unconfined: Heroic Masculinity in English Seafaring Novels" in Klein 'Fictions of the Sea"; while it is preferred that a source be readily available for a reader to be online, there is no requirement for a reliable source to be online.

Within policy  Partly done No apparent copyright violations observed, no major verifiability issues apparent, except for a sentence in the "Women and the sea" section and a paragraph in the definition section ("For the sake of this article..."). Article does not have any neutrality issues that I have observed, or that have been brought up. ✓ Pass Parts of article not provided proper citations were either given citations, or removed, and citations were added to the article scope paragraph per WP:BURDEN.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Review requirement (QPQ) ✓ Pass Initial editor did review another article as stated, see diff

Hook ALT 1 ✓ Pass

Article is bolded, has an asterisk, is 182 characters, is not based on a non-English source.

Hook appears to be relevant, neutral, not negative to a living person, not about an election candidate, is not about a fictional character.

Hook ALT 2 ✓ Pass

Article is bolded, has an asterisk, is 185 characters, and is not based on a non-English souce. However, the nickname "Sea Wolf" for Lord Cochrane is not included in this article directly referring to Lord Cochrane. "Sea Wolf" nickname added on 11 May.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Hook appears to be relevant, neutral, not negative to a living person, not about an election candidate, is not about a fictional character.

Images No images provided. Y

As the article being nominated, for the period which it was nominated from does not meet the fivefold criteria, I cannot pass this nomination. Better luck next time.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:56, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast: Please note that this article was moved to mainspace on the 4 March and nominated three days later. Fuebaey (talk) 01:54, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm also frankly puzzled by the references to the state of the article or hooks as of March 14. Although a nomination must be made within seven days of an article's creation in mainspace or expansion there, content, sourcing, and so on should reflect the current state of the article. What matters is whether the article is neutral and free of copyvio/close paraphrasing now, not its state nearly two months ago. BlueMoonset (talk) 06:29, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

@Fuebaey: I did not notice that, as it was marked as a minor edit. I have updated that section of the criteria evaluation above.

@BlueMoonset: Even looking at the current article, the current article does not refer to Lord Cochrane as his nickname anywhere in the article, therefore either ALT 2 needs to be edited, or that content added to the article. Furthermore those verifiability issues remain as mentioned above. The following almost entire paragraph is uncited:

Hanley's novel takes place mainly at sea, unlike Conrad's. The Sea Road by Margaret Elphinstone is a sea novel by a woman and her protagonist is also a woman. The Sea Road tells the story of the Viking discovery of North America, around 1000 A.D., from a woman's point of view. Star-Crossed by Linda Collison, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2006, tells the story of a young English woman who becomes a surgeon's mate at sea during the Seven Years' War. The New York Public Library chose Star-Crossed to be among the "Books for the Teen Age" in 2007. New Zealand maritime historian and novelist Joan Druett has written extensively about women at sea in nonfiction works like Hen Frigates, Wives of Merchant Captains Under Sail (1998), Petticoat Whalers: Whaling Wives at Sea (1991) and Eleanor's Odyssey (2014). She has also written a nautical, historical crime fiction series called "Wiki Coffin" , which is set during the United States Navy's United States Exploring Expedition through the Pacific Ocean 1838–1842. Female authors Margaret Muir, Susan Keogh, Eva Ulett, Ann Victoria Roberts, are also noted for their historical fiction set at sea.

The following are not cited, who says those are "important British novelist":

Another important British novelist who wrote about life at sea was William Golding (1911–1993). He served in the Royal Navy during World War II and his novel Pincher Martin (1956) records the delusions experienced by a drowning sailor in his last moments. Golding's trilogy To the Ends of the Earth is about sea voyages to Australia in the early nineteenth century.

1. When do Wikipedians get to define the scope of subjects without using pre-defined scopes based on reliable sources?

   For the sake of this article, and to limit its scope this article opts not to include the broader definitions of sea or maritime literature, which frequently accompanies more thematic discussions of nautical topics in culture. Instead, the focus is on the more limited sea/nautical novel and the fiction that grows out of that set of generic expectations. In so doing, we highlight what most critics describe as the more conventional definition for the genre.

Fix those things and the nomination should be good to go. Until then, I will upgrade my overall tag, but this has not yet passed muster IMHO.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:07, 10 May 2015 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast:I have responded above in line, I think that should fix everything (including the cochrane "Sea Wolf" citation). Let me know if there is anything elseSadads (talk) 23:55, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

@Sadads: Please do not respond in-line, as a non-involved editor may have difficulty seeing where the responses begin, and where my reply ends. Please provide diffs to show the changes made to the article to remedy this issues I brought up in this review. Looking forward to a response. Thanks in advance.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:29, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast: Moved responses to items, and number them in your comment so we know what we are talking about:

1.  Fixed That was added since I nominated, definitely not useful, IMHO. Sadads (talk) 23:55, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
2.  Fixed These are uncontroversial summaries of the novels, but have added references for the sake of this review.Sadads (talk) 23:55, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
3. Because we are using the least common denominator: the bit that every scholar starts with, and then tries to expand into a broader definition. I have added citations to the authors which I am drawing the consensus from (there are others, but I don't have the time to pull them right now). Its meta-commentary, that normally would go in a footnote if there were a longer definition of the scope of the article; limiting scope makes sense, especially when there is another article Sea in culture which discusses the broader scope these other authors are talking about in some detail.Sadads (talk) 23:55, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast:Can we pass this DYK review? As far as I understand WP:WIADYK none of these should have prevented the article from going to DYK: they are small cleanup items, due in the long term, not something to prevent meeting Criteria #4, Sadads (talk) 14:13, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I have updated my review above. I am still concerned about the following sentence in the article:

For the sake of this article, and to limit its scope this article opts not to include the broader definitions of sea or maritime literature, which frequently accompanies more thematic discussions of nautical topics in culture. Instead, the focus is on the more limited sea/nautical novel and the fiction that grows out of that set of generic expectations. In so doing, we highlight what most critic describe as the more conventional definition for the genre.

It makes it appear that the definition of the scope is being defined by wikipedia, and not by what reliable sources state. That being said all other issues I have brought up have been resolved.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:43, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry @RightCowLeftCoast: I have been really busy IRL, and with WP:TWL: completely missed the response.

I made a change to focus on consensus in the language to clear up the issue of explicit decision making above; in part, there has to be metacritical discussion about this definition like that paragraph, because as encyclopedists, attempting to summarize the field, even when relying on the opinions of the different voices, requires a small series of weight of opinion decisions that should be transparent. For this genre, everyone in the scholarship is trying to redefine the genre, name of the genre or what works are included in it, even though they agree on the consensus assumptions/understandings described in the first paragraph of that section. Its absolutely bizarre and largely a matter of semantics used to start academic conversations (and this is the problem of working with broad scope articles: assuming that anything below a Featured article, can actually objectively cover the topic).

However, it would be unfair to the Wikipedia readers, if that disclaimer wasn't in the article: because a consensus on how big the definition should grow or if it should grow doesn't seem to exist, beyond that initial set of assumptions. Unfortunately, with cultural subjects like this about a genre, that doesn't have a well defined scholarly conversation (there are a few books, but they take it in several different directions, rather than respond to eachother), the need for some decision making happens, but needs to be highlighted in the article itself, so that we aren't pulling the wool over our reader's eyes. If there were a definitive work defining the genre, I would most certainly be using it; but as of yet, I haven't found one :P Maybe, if I go back for a PhD in a few years, I will make it a dissertation topic, Sadads (talk) 13:52, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for attempting to clear that up Sadads. As I am not as familiar with with genre definitions in this field of knowledge, I will take your word on it (as it is still clear as mud to me) but perhaps someone for WP:LIT, can comment on this, as they are the subject matter experts.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:57, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

@RightCowLeftCoast: Thank you for your thoughtfulness, but I am pretty sure myself, and the other few people working on the article are going to be your most knowledgeable members of Lit, WP:Novels or WP:Children's lit for this particular topic (and we have briefly discussed this issue on Talk:Nautical fiction) When/if I get up to GA review or something similar, yes that should prevent passing; but for DYK: this shouldn't slow the nomination; I don't see how it prevents the nomination/article from meeting that criteria. Its been more than 3 months since nomination, and over 2 months since initial review. Can we please just end the review? You already mentioned that it doesn't prevent meeting the DYK requirements: thus it should pass! Having the article in the DYK section would be a brilliant way to solicit comments (its part of the reason we encourage new articles to go through DYK: to get more eyes on them). The last couple DYK's I have submitted or helped submit have had a very disappointing review process: its been extended over minor details in the article, when 2 years ago, they would have passed, and the reviewer would have started a discussion on the talk page which the DYK on the front page would have brought more viewers. I recently was alarmed by the graph at File:Wikipedia_account_age_of_average_edit_by_registered_user.png; I think this slowing in DYKs is a partial contributor to the decline in new users becoming strong long-term editors: I used to co-nominate articles from new users with reasonably good work to DYK, because it was a low-scrutiny/high return way to get initial feedback, visibilty of the article, and some minor editing and talkpage feedback from other users. Anyway: again I am going to highlight my main concern: this is not preventing passing DYK criteria, can we please just wrap it up? Sadads (talk) 15:33, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Please see this diff. As stated above, I marked my review above with DYKtickAGF, even though I have my concern about that paragraph. Therefore, even with my concern it passes almost all of DYK criteria. Thus, I believe that the energy displayed above is misdirected.

I am sorry if there is frustration with DYK, compared to others who review DYK, when I do reviews, I believe anyone can see that I go in-depth with the process, and take it seriously. It is my view that my review length is not wrong, but shows how much time I am willing to devote to a proper review.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:57, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

• For clarity, this nomination has been approved for either ALT1 or ALT2. Harrias ^talk 09:37, 24 May 2015 (UTC)