Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Science Fiction Quarterly/archive1

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 Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 15:16, 19 November 2014 (UTC) [1].

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Science Fiction Quarterly

Nominator(s): Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:42, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Science Fiction Quarterly was one of four science fiction magazines that Louis Silberkleit, later one of the publishers of Archie Comics, published intermittently over a couple of decades. Two sister magazines were Future Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories; that article was just promoted, and because the publishing history of all these magazines is closely related there is quite a bit of overlap in the text -- I reused big chunks of the publication history section in particular. This is a situation that has occurred before at FAC: for example Astonishing Stories and Super Science Stories, which overlap for similar reasons, are both FAs. I don't believe it should cause an problems with the FA criteria, but I wanted to make sure any reviewer is aware of the overlap in case there is a concern there. As for SFQ itself, it was never a leader in its field, but it was a better magazine than would have been expected given the minuscule budget the editors were given. When it died in 1958, it was the end of an era: SFQ was the very last surviving science fiction pulp magazine. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:42, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done

• Some small inconsistencies in page formatting - FN 5 needs space, FNs 15, 22, 25 should use "pp."
• Ashley 1976: is this a separate edition or just a reprinting? If the former we need an edition statement, if the latter the origdate explanation needs amending. Same with Atheling. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:43, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

All fixed now; thanks for the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• Comments - I've done some copyediting, but feel free to disagree with them; the article could probably use a more thorough copyedit, but I suppose that they all do.

  Your edits look fine to me with one exception. I changed "In each issue of Science Fiction Quarterly, Silberkleit obtained rights to reprint two early science fiction novels and several of Ray Cummings' books for lead stories." to "Science Fiction Quarterly's policy was to reprint a novel in each issue as the lead story, and Silberkleit was able to obtain reprint rights to two early science fiction novels and several of Ray Cummings' books." My original version certainly needed improving, but your version makes it sound as though Silberkleit obtained rights to all these novels in each issue, and also implies that there was a lead novel in every single issue, which wasn't the case. That's why I wanted to retain the word "policy" -- the body of the article explains the exceptions but I think that's too much detail for the lead. Is the latest version OK? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

  That's fine—thank you for checking my edits. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• "science fiction magazines" twice in one sentence in the lead

  Copyedited. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• The article said that "Silberkleit's policy was to include a reprinted novel in each issue as the lead story" -- in SFQ or all of his magazines? I've assumed the former, so please fix if this is wrong.

  You're right; I should have made it clearer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• Uncomfortable with the casual shortening of "science fiction" to "sf", but I assume you've used that in other FAs.

  I have, and I think some form of abbreviation is needed for variety in the prose, since otherwise some sequences of sentences get very overloaded with "science fiction". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• You're using semi-colons too much; your sentences can be shortened instead.

  Yes, they're a weakness of mine. I got rid of a couple; let me know if you see any more that you think should be copyedited away. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• You go back and forth between a lot of names in the second paragragh of "Publishing history", which makes it hard to follow. While I appreciate that you need to be clear who is saying what, can you look into simplifying it, if possible?

  I read through the paragraph, and I think the confusing part is where the story passes to Moskowitz and Wollheim. Silberkleit, Hornig and Lowndes are the main players, and I hope that by the end the reader is clear on their parts, but the other two are bit players. I padded the sentence about Wollheim with some context, which also gave me a chance to mention how he and Lowndes knew each other. Does that improve things? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

  Could you possibly split that lengthy paragraph? Otherwise I can live with it. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

  Done. Because the long story about how Lowndes got the job takes up the middle of the para, the best I could do was lop a few sentences off the end, but I think it helps. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:01, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

• Otherwise, nice work! Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 07:06, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks for the review! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:53, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks for the changes! I'm now supporting this article. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 22:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:01, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Support - I've read this through a few times now and it looks good to me. Note: I'd read Future Science Fiction and Science Fiction Stories too, somehow got distracted, and forgot to post to the FAC! This is very similar, but seems improved. The single question I have is whether it might be necessary to explain (very briefly) the difference between a digest and pulp format for readers who don't know? The usual fine work. Love the pics, btw! Victoria (tk) 15:07, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the support! I linked the first appearance of "digest format" to digest size, which I think should help; pulp magazine was already linked. I hope this is enough; it's hard to see how to get an aside about the format into the article, though perhaps it could be done as a note. Yes, the pictures are one of the fun things about these magazines; glad you like them! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:06, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's perfect. I tried searching for a link, but for some reason digest size didn't pop up. Victoria (tk) 15:35, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 21:12, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Comment - Has there been an image review? Graham Beards (talk) 21:50, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

I've just requested one at the FAC talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:03, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Graham Beards (talk) 23:10, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Image check - all OK (I hate copyright renewal records)

• All images are PD (US not renewed) and have sufficient source and author information - OK.
• Spotchecked lead image and second image for copyright renewal:

• lead image: 2 contributions within the magazine were copyright renewed (de Camp and a second author), but not the whole magazine or its cover - OK (for the cover).
• second image: no copyright records found (both for original registration and renewal) - OK.

• Third image is same publication era as lead image - OK. GermanJoe (talk) 14:50, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, much appreciated. Graham Beards (talk) 15:16, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Graham Beards (talk) 15:16, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

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