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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Moonrise (novel)/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 by Karanacs 17:07, 6 September 2011 [1].

Moonrise (novel)

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Moonrise (novel) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Brambleclawx 16:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it is ready to be scrutinized by reviewers against the FA criteria. Brambleclawx 16:54, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning oppose for a couple of reasons: first, because of the lack of third-party sources, and second because as a reader unfamiliar with the book or the series I find it very difficult to follow what's going on. For example, you mention that several characters are "apprentices" - what is the meaning of that term in the context of this story? If the term has the same definition as it does in the real world, to what trade are they apprenticed? Nikkimaria (talk) 20:31, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean the lack of third-party sources in the article itself, or just in general? Brambleclawx 20:52, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether other sources exist; if they do, they should be added. If they don't, it may simply be that there are not sufficient sources to build an FA-level article. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've also attempted to clarify the article: I've added an extremely brief explanation about Clan structure. Please tell me if you think there's more you think needs explaning. Brambleclawx 21:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose as well. Sorry- this actually looks like a the kind of thing I'd enjoy, too. At the moment, two and a half times as much of the main body of the article (synopsis, including the list) is devoted to in-universe information, (approx. 6855 bytes, versus 2960 bytes) when a high quality article would really be the other way around. I'm not convinced the character list is even needed in this article. There's already a chacter list article, so the characters can simply be linked in their first mention in the plot section. If they aren't mentioned in the plot section, then we probably don't need details about them anyway. J Milburn (talk) 21:53, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed a large portion of the in-universe material. Brambleclawx 22:04, 22 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've struck my oppose. The article is currently rather short; I have no problem with short FAs per se, but I worry that there are more reliable sources out there which may contain valuable information which could be brought into this article. Give me some time; I am looking into this. J Milburn (talk) 14:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I've added a couple of sources about the book's appearance on a minor Canadian chart. I wonder whether there warrants a mention of Harry Potter in this article? See my comments on the talk page of this FAC; a couple of sources I came across link the two works. J Milburn (talk) 15:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Just curious: where did you manage to find these sources? I've been looking everywhere, and haven't been able to find much. Brambleclawx 15:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have access to various newspaper archives. Everything else I found was either not worth including, or you'd already found. J Milburn (talk) 15:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In terms of the sources you've found, I can see what you're thinking, but I'm not quite sure how I'd write it per se. The first source seems to indicate that Warriors as a whole is more popular than Harry Potter in some regions, while the second source seems to say that people who like Harry Potter would like Warriors as well, but I'm not sure if this would be seen as original research? Brambleclawx 15:27, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I understand- it was just a thought, I'll have a think on it. There are a few other things which need looking into with the article; I'll get to that this evening. I think this FAC will probably fail this time, as it's now a little late in the game; this may have a shot, but I worry that it may be an article which is going to be stuck at good status. J Milburn (talk) 15:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've given inserting those refs a shot anyway. I've tried my best not to say anything more than is actually written within the news articles. Feedback? Brambleclawx 15:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Look into the USA Today best-seller list. Looks like this book appearred on it for one week in 2005. maclean (talk) 20:25, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Brambleclawx 17:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Prose comments from J Milburn-

  • "which follows the adventures of four groups of wild cats (called Clans)" Mention that they're anthopormorphic
  • "Moonrise introduces a new group of cats, the Tribe of Rushing Water. Series editor Victoria Holmes drew inspiration from locations such as the New Forest and the Scottish Highlands. Moonrise follows six cats, Brambleclaw, Squirrelpaw, Crowpaw, Feathertail, Stormfur, and Tawnypelt, as they return to their forest home from a journey to the ocean. They travel through the mountains, where they meet the Tribe of Rushing Water. The Tribe cats were being attacked by a savage mountain lion called Sharptooth. Although reluctant at first, the Clan cats agree to help the Tribe get rid of Sharptooth." This para seems to be in the wrong order. I'd open with the main characters, and mention that they're returning from the journey they undertook in a previous book (I assume they are?). The fact that the Tribe is a new group can be mentioned after they're introduced. There's also a tense switch- events of the book should be in present tense.
  • "Kirkus Reviews criticized" Avoid personifying publications
  • "The New York Times Best Seller list for two weeks." It's not THE bestseller list, it's the kid's bestseller list
  • I think you need to make clear in the lead that "Erin Hunter" is a pseudonym
  • The "Inspirations, influences, and style" section seems very light, and this is indicitive of my main concern for this article- you're piecing together snippets about the series as a whole and isolated comments.
  • Who wrote this particular novel? That information seems to be sorely lacking from the article.
  • The entire "Setting and characters" section is unreferenced. A basic retelling of the plot can do without references, but that kind of thing needs something to back it up.
  • "highway" If it's in England, we don't have highways, we have motorways. Go with the word the book uses, though.
  • "Moonrise is followed by Dawn." At the moment, this line feels slightly out of place.
  • The prose in the plot section isn't perfect- for example, I had to reread "However, their plan to poison Sharptooth goes awry, and Feathertail jumps up to the roof of the cave onto a stalactite to save Crowpaw from being killed. She plummets to the floor with the spike, falling on Sharptooth." before I understood it. Surely, it's not the jumping onto a stalagtite that saves Crowpaw, but the stalagtite then falling onto Sharptooth?
  • "Kirkus Reviews criticized the novel" Again, personification
  • Odd that you say that the reviews praised the work, yet jump straight into negative attention
  • "saying that "a small plot twist is refreshing and suspense builds steadily towards the final installment"." Final installment? This was more than a trilogy, wasn't it?
  • "Booklist praised" Again
  • "Horn Book Review gave a"
  • "The review stated"
  • "BookLoons gave" Same personification- what is Bookloons?
  • "reached The New York Times bestseller list," Again, it's the kids' list.

I've got to say that I worry that this is something that will struggle to make featured article status- there just don't seem to be the sources. That said, I enjoyed reading it; I roleplay, and run a lot of Bunnies & Burrows (and I've also played the Mouse Guard roleplaying game) so, genrewise, the book is right up my street. J Milburn (talk) 16:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of the inspiration, influence and style section, I afriad there's not much I can add. There used to be a bit about the Tribe's different faith being inspired the 9/11 attacks, but that was a ref to an "author chat" on Wands and Worlds, which seems to draw the attention of every reviewer for being a forum, so I got rid of that. Other than that, unless inserting the stuff from reviewers about the cliffhanger ending counts as style information, I don't see anything I could add to the section.
As for who wrote the novel, I'm almost certain it was Cherith Baldry, but again, no reliable sources. Only sources are an author chat (which is not reliable due to being on a forum) and the widely-known (but completely unverifiable) fact by Warriors fans that the "Special thanks" page indicates the author of the book (Moonrise says "Special thanks to Cherith Baldry"). I suppose I could use the source where Baldry talks about how it was hard to write Feathertail's death as implicit proof that she was the one who wrote it, but I get the feeling people would object to that.
As for the thing about the final instalment, yes, it's a six-book arc. But that doesn't mean the suspense toward the final book can't start building in the second.
And to be honest, as far as I know, BookLoons is some sort of book website. The review given doesn't seem to be user-created content (which would definitely be unreliable), but I'm not quite sure of how reliable BookLoons actually is. Brambleclawx 17:55, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The novel is written from a third-person limited narrative, that alternates between characters. In terms of this specific book (excluding the prologue which is in objective third-person), chapter one is a third-person limited narrative following Stormfur (i.e., the story is told in the third person from Stormfur's perspective: we know his thoughts, but not the other characters'), chapter two is a third-person limited narrative following Leafpaw, and chapter three switches back to Stormfur. In general they switch every chapter, though I believe on occasion, they have two consecutive chapters that don't switch perspectives. Brambleclawx 19:54, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nominator, can you please ping the reviewers and ask them to revisit? Karanacs (talk) 14:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure. Brambleclawx 14:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaning to Oppose - I have not reviewed the prose, but judging from the references alone, I'd have trouble supporting this nomination. You do not cite any really reputable written or published sources, and the few that are are missing publishers and/or works. What makes a load of these sources FA worthy? I as a reviewer and reader have never heard of them, and can't read up on them here. So please, enlighten me as to why they belong on Wikipedia's best?--CallMeNathan • Talk2Me 08:09, 1 September 2011 (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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