Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Marvel Science Stories/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) 17:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC) [1].

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Marvel Science Stories

Nominator(s): Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:49, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Marvel Science Stories was part of two booms in science fiction magazine publishing, in 1939 and again in 1950. It was unusual in that it carried more sexual content than most science fiction magazines of the time, partly because it came from a publishing house that emphasized "sex and sadism" in its magazines. The content would barely raise an eyebrow these days, but "aliens lusting after unclothed Earth women" was enough to bring irate letters from the readers. The article is on the short side for a featured article; my personal guideline is that an article with less than 1000 words prose goes to GAN instead of FAC, and this is a little over that mark. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:49, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Image check - all OK

• Both images have sufficient source and author information.
• Both images are "PD-US-not renewed", no renewals. GermanJoe (talk) 22:12, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

Source review - spotchecks not done

• FN4 should use endash. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:22, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

  Fixed. Dang it, thought I might get a clean bill of health from you this time! This is the closest I've gotten so far. Thanks for the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:27, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

• Support tried my hardest to find a nit-pick though. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:38, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Comment I looked just at the lead section ... nothing for me to do. Good work. - Dank (push to talk) 18:27, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! Nice to hear. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Support with a very few comments:

• Again, suggest linking digest format.

  Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Was "Survival" a full-length novel? I'm only asking because I'm curious - and because I wondered whether Erisman intended to feature a novel-length piece for each issue?

  It appears to have been about 60 pages, which would make it a bit short for a novel, but well within the range that would be advertised as a "lead novel". None of the sources comment on whether it was policy to have a lead novel, though, so I don't think I can either. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

  I thought not, and you're right, 60 pages is a little short. It's interesting to me that there was a market for sf writers (and others) in the pulps. Anyway, I enjoy reading these. Thanks for doing this nice series. Victoria (tk) 00:21, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• I broke a sentence in two here because I had some trouble getting through it all. There might be a better way of doing it though.

  That looks fine. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

That's all. Thanks for another interesting read! Victoria (tk) 02:49, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:05, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Support Comments

• new, higher quality magazines needs a hyphen between higher and quality as that's a compound adjective.
• Otherwise nicely done; short but sweet.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:47, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

  Fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:32, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

  Thanks for the support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:06, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Support, with the following comments, from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

• Sources look good.
• CorenSearchBot shows no vios. Googling three random phrases showed no copyvios - only wikipedia mirrors and other wikipedia articles (I did note that the phrase "it did not begin to coalesce into a separately marketed genre until the appearance in 1926" is apparantly a favorite of yours...)

  Yeah ... when you write ten or fifteen articles about the same time period you end up re-using snippets, and I admit I've used that one a lot. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Publication
  • Ick. "(sf)"... I prefer "(SF)" but ... whatever.

    I use "sf" because it's the preferred abbreviation in the Nicholls/Clute Science Fiction Encyclopedia, though I also admit to a personal preference for it. For one thing, there are other things that "SF" can stand for, but "sf" only has one common usage. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

  • "but an sf magazine"? Shouldn't it be "a sf magazine"?

    I think common usage is to read it as "esseff", not as "science fiction". E.g. see this page, which contains the phrase "an sf novel". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

  • "there were two more stories in the same two issues by him under pseudonyms" what were the stories and pseudonymns?

    If I can use the ISFDB as a reliable source I can add this information. The relevant page is here. As a practical matter the ISFDB is very reliable on facts like what the contents of a magazine are, but I'm not sure if it qualifies as a reliable source by our standards. The problem is that anyone can submit information to be added to it; but that information has to be vetted by the senior editors on the site before it can be displayed. (Full disclosure: I've done a fair amount of editing for the ISFDB and have added some information to it myself.) Personally I think it doesn't qualify, but I should mention that the SFE says: "The more specialist Internet Speculative Fiction Database is incomparable for its cataloguing of books and stories published, with every edition known to its compilers of every work being listed (the present encyclopedia confines itself to first editions, significant revisions and variant titles); its strongest area of coverage is North America-based writers over the last half century or so", which is a pretty strong recommendation from a reliable source. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:13, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

    • Probably best to leave it out then. It's an iffy source and the data isn't really necessary. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:21, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Those are just quibbles, however, so I am happy to support. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:24, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:13, 5 January 2015 (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) 17:36, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

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