Talk:Astonishing Stories

Astonishing Stories is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.

This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on November 13, 2011.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
July 10, 2011	Featured article candidate	Promoted

Magazines Mid‑importance

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"SF" vs "science fiction"

I'm promoting this article because there's consensus at the FAC, but I'm not fond of the "sf" abbreviation. It's used 5 times in the body of the article. "Science fiction" is used 6 times in the body of the article. I'd rather see the article be consistent and use one or the other. Karanacs (talk) 22:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Half a title

Many times in the article, the magazine is referred to by an abbreviated title of Astonishing. If there is evidence that this form was in widespread use, it should be sourced. Without this, it looks like the encyclopaedia has decided on what is a sufficient title, or has imposed a nickname. Kevin McE (talk) 00:43, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This kind of abbreviation is standard in the sources. The most important source for this article is Ashley's The Time Machines, and you can see his use of this abbreviation in Google Books -- though for some reason they give the title as The History of the Science Fiction Magazine, when in fact that's the series title. Anyway, yes, it's definitely standard. Since that book is already used as a source multiple times, is that sufficient? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:06, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An explanation in the text would not go amiss. The article, and the TFA extract on the Main Page, shift almost schizophrenically between two different (albeit clearly related) titles for the publication without explanation. Kevin McE (talk) 08:44, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you mean Dissociative identity disorderally... Ericoides (talk) 08:53, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The sources make this sort of switch frequently; I assume they do so partly to abbreviate and partly to vary the rhythm -- long titles, such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction or Astounding Stories of Super Science, really need to be abbreviated to avoid a tedious reading experience. I imagine they think it would be evident to the reader what was going on, so they don't include any explanation. I'd like to hear from other editors on this before making a change; let's see who else comments. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:01, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hawkwind

No mention of Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music in the article? Ericoides (talk) 07:51, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ads

Spanish ad of libreoffice office suite at the beginning of article, non editable part — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.124.160.137 (talk) 16:03, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks -- it was vandalism; another editor just removed it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:10, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

removing pic

why did somebody remove cover magazine? plz someone answer my q?Alborzagros (talk) 06:34, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I removed it because it's a copyrighted picture, and we can only use those under a claim of "fair use". Typically this means that the article has to make a substantive comment on the content of the picture. If the picture is only used for illustration, then that's not really justifiable as fair use, and we can't use it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:57, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to WP:NFCI, one of the acceptable uses coming under fair use is "Cover art: Cover art from various items, for visual identification only in the context of critical commentary of that item (not for identification without critical commentary)." So, does the "of that item" requirement above refer to the specific, particular cover illustrated, or to a commentary of the book or magazine itself? If it's the former, there are probably thousands of WP pages that are misusing the fair use provisions on cover art. But if it is the latter, I don't see why this article would not qualify as "critical commentary" of the magazine in question. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:10, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not an expert on copyright so I try to avoid borderline cases. I have found at WP:FAC that if I have critical commentary about an image I can leave the image in the article; if not, I can't. If you want to solicit the opinion of one of the regular image reviewers there, please do. I agree it would be nice to include a cover, if only for decorative reasons, but see the FAC for this article for objections to the inclusion of covers from one of the regular reviewers there. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:33, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to follow up on this question in a general way. I wasn't attacking your decision, I just honestly don't know the answer to this. If I learn anything new or definitive I'll post here. Thanks. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 03:58, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't think you were attacking, and I hope I didn't sound defensive. It would be great to find out that we can use more covers, so please do let me know what you find out. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:06, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, your response was not defensive—I was just being overly cautious and trying to explain my query and trying not to offend. Thx. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 20:40, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]