Talk:Boys' Ranch/GA1

GA Review

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Opening review

Reviewer: Kathyrncelestewright (talk) 07:16, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to study the reference formatting. At first glance, it appears to be somewhat inconsistent. I've done some copyediting and revisions and I believe the article reads better. I eliminated the "Delilah" section as there simply wasn't enough there for a subsection. - Kathyrncelestewright (talk) 09:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Second opinion

GA review Second Opinion by Gbern3 (see here for criteria)

1. Well-written: yes.
2. Factually accurate and verifiable: I don't have a problem with the way you formatted your current citations because you used citation templates but I do think you need more. I found five sentences that needed to be verified. In the lead: [1]"Following the title's 1951 demise, reprints hit newsstands in 1955, and all six issues were collected and published in a hardcover edition by Marvel Comics in 1991" and [2]"...one story was reprinted in the 2009 anthology, The Best of Simon & Kirby." In creation and publication: [3]"[Harvey Comics] had previously published two short-lived Simon and Kirby titles, Stuntman and Boy Explorers in 1946)", [4]"Simon and Kirby researched background for Boys' Ranch over a period of ten years, traveling to Texas, Wyoming, and Arkansas", and [5]"The book's original title was The Kid Cowboys of Boys' Ranch, but was shortened to simply Boys' Ranch with issue 3."
3. Broad in its coverage: I think it would be helpful to a casual reader if you explained the plot more. I understood that Dandy and Wabash along with their team of ranchers defended Jason Harper's ranch but that's where the plot ends. The section goes on to say how there was prejudice against Native Americans. It doesn't state what happens next. Who are they protecting the ranch from? And why are they protecting it?
4. Neutral: yes.
5. Stable: yes.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by images: yes.

Conclusion: Kathyrncelestewright requested a second opinion on the GA nominations page and according to policy, the decision whether or not to pass/fail is suppose to be made by the first reviewer. I've left a message on Kathyrncelestewright's talk page about the review I just made. Gbern3 (talk) 14:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Hey folks, I just dropped in on the review today - thanks for picking ths up - If you can hang on a bit, I'll be able to respond to the comments some time this weekend. Cheers, --Scott Free (talk) 15:06, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggest reboot - I've worked with the reviewer before, seemed to be a pretty decent editor - although it this case, the editor made such extensive cuts to the article that he/she correctly saw fit to request a second opinion. However, I feel that the cuts were made in disregard to the good and productive peer review that several experienced and competent editors contributed to. Morever, due to the recent incapacitation of said editor, what happens to the review? It doesn't look like he/she is in a position to close it anytime soon. If Gbern3 wants to take it on, I have no problem with that. --Scott Free (talk) 18:08, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Just a technical note: Leads aren't actually supposed to have footnotes (except, I suppose, for birth/death dates not otherwise mentioned in the article) and after stating the reason for notability should summarize the article's main points, which are footnoted in the main body. -- Tenebrae (talk) 19:37, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

collapsed o/t closed discussion

===Thanks=== Thank you Whitehorse, for your efforts in reviewing the article. Technically, I agree with all the points you raise - You make a good presentation of Wikipedia policy and your efforts at pointing out relevant policy points are appreciated. Unfortunately, there are some irreconcilable differences - The main problem is advocating edits and viewpoints of a user that has been temporarily banned for sockpuppet usage and who has several articles being examined for innapropriate editing. Ultimately, my problem here is basically the same as I originally expressed with the original reviewer : A tendency to disregard the previous community feedback to the point of making too many fundamental changes to the article. The article already went through fairly extensive changes in order to arrive at GAR in a relatively stable state. If the article needs that many changes, then it's better to just fail it. Moreover, I'm sorry but I just don't have the time to justify almost half of the references; two or three of them, I can understand, but if there's that many references that are problematic - then I don't know what to say. When you compare this to the average good article, it's a relatively, small, simple, basic presentation. If there are concerns about overdetail in such a short article, then all I have to say is thanks for your input, but I have nothing further to add to this evaluation. It's too bad because I thought your initial edits were very good and helped improve the article's readability. But yeah, supporting a sock puppet account, I'm afraid that's a deal-breaker. All the best.--Scott Free (talk) 14:49, 26 November 2009 (UTC) Thank you for your comments. In no way have I supported or favored the act of sockpuppetry. I believe deception undermines community confidence, obstructing collegial interaction among editors. Articles the user substantially wrote and reviews they conducted are being examined, yes. That's just good sense. I happen to know of the checking of their reviews, because of having done most of it myself—since nobody else came forward. The finding was articles awarded a pass genuinely met that status; all reviews said what they should. The normal choice to complete your unfinished review had taken extended wikileave. To avoid you having to replace it in the backlogged GAC queue as you said at WT:GA, I stepped forward to complete that too. My initial read through picked up small ways the prose could be improved, so I made those small changes. Later, I examined the peer review comments and original reviewer's changes closely. Those mainly comprised style alterations, along with copyediting such as omitting needless words to transform sentences into punchier versions. Despite not having yet seen the original reviewer's changes when I made my initial edits—which you were kind enough to say improved the article, twice—when I eventually saw their changes later I discovered both edits were the same sort of thing. ([1] / [2]) A change that makes an article easier to read has that same effect regardless of who implemented it. I'm not prepared to compromise quality, sweep legitimate concerns under the carpet nor tie myself in knots trying to avoid them, if they happen to have been first raised by somebody later sanctioned. Now that doesn't mean I think all the changes advantageous. For instance, one alteration changed the character section to a embedded list which is discouraged by the GA criteria. I much prefer your version presenting the information in prose form. There is a natural reluctance to suppose that a good change can come from a bad source. It's worthwhile, if difficult, to consider the merit of changes themselves. No matter what the change I do not condone the sockpuppet behavior. Far from "disregarding previous community feedback", I completely agree with it. The peer review had two contributors. One exclusively recommended formatting, styling & spelling changes, plus encouragement of diverse sourcing. The other recommended the team section be a "Plot" section in prose not list form and merging Mother Delilah into the Crit. analysis section, which is exactly what I said. I agree the article is stable, which is why I'd no hesitation marking that criterion met. Aside from imagery, few concerns were brought up: suggested reword on a sentence and a heading; request to explain or wikilink unfamiliar terms; doublecheck ordinary refs data present, request to clarify why some're reliable sources; add more on plot if able; hone though certainly not eviscerate two parts. That's about 5 items, none of which involve substantial reworking. An alternative approach would have been closing the review as 'not promoted' with 'here's the minimum you need to do to reach good article standard' bulletpoints. I was reluctant to 'fail' the article, particularly since you'd already had 2 reviewers come and go. It seemed more likely to improve the encyclopedia as well as kinder to try to end with the banner a GA quality pass symbol. It's not that I've judged those references problematic. The first-linked page explains what's being asked and why. This is generally as brief as clarifying that while x is a blog it belongs to a noted expert in the field or published author or is a site backed by a large media company, and is something the reviewer is obliged to cover by criterion 1b. In contrast, it is clear even to somebody unfamiliar with the topic area that books published by academic presses constitute reliable sources. I rebut any suggestion I am a sockpuppet supporter, enabler, or apologist. Ultimately though, this is not about me. I'd like to move forward, to resume the review, in the greater interest of building quality content. –Whitehorse1 00:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC) Feel free to do what you have to do it. I'm backing away from the situation until the whole sock-puppet situation clears up. Besides that issue, I just don't feel that its appropriate for an editor to make deep structural changes and reconceptualisations in a GAR situation, with certain exceptions; if they had in-depth knowledge of the topic, for example. To be brief, here's just one example of a problem with the previous editors changes (although there were a few good phrase changes here and there) - The 'Mother Delilah' section has references from this book - R.C. Harvey (1996). The Art of the Comic Book – An Aesthetic History. Jackson: Univ. Press of Mississippi. The story in question has been the most critically analysed aspect of the topic and that book is the most scholarly, credible reference of all the references of the article. To delete that section was just so off the mark that I really don't know what to say.--Scott Free (talk) 17:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC) If you're disinclined to address any concerns a reviewer brings up with an article you nominate, fine. I've no idea what you mean by "the whole sockpuppet situation clears up" given checkusers/admins blocked all their accounts so it's impossible for them to edit. Your statement it's inappropriate for anybody to make all but the most trivial alterations to an article absent expert-level topic knowledge goes against the most fundamental Wikipedia principles. You're welcome to hold that view, but should leave that belief at the door when you come to contribute. Taking umbrage at recommendations such as massage prose, address non-free-content policy violations and expand plot coverage is your prerogative. Responding by throwing around insulting comments like "main problem is advocating edits and viewpoints of a user that has been temporarily banned for sockpuppet usage // yeah, supporting a sock puppet account, I'm afraid that's a deal-breaker", however, is completely unacceptable. Legitimate concerns against the GA criteria must be addressed if that article is to attain GA status; if the editor that originally raised them is subsequently blocked, that is unfortunate; it is not a loophole. Neither earlier reviewers, peer review participants, nor myself insisted that section be deleted. It was merely suggested that as a small section its salient points be merged into the relevant section. Because you've seen fit to cast aspersions on my character and integrity, albeit unfounded ones, it's not possible for me to close this GAN without the appearance of impropriety. Nor, as comparatively few issues require attention, do I believe it would best serve the project to do so. Instead, I shall ask at relevant WikiProjects to find editors familiar with the topic and willing to address problems in the article. –Whitehorse1 01:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

---

GA Review redux

• Hi. As Gbern3 is now on an extended wikibreak, I'll take over the review. I'll add any review comments within the next 24hrs or so. Thanks. –Whitehorse1 19:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

OK Great, thanks. Nice edits, reads better. --Scott Free (talk) 14:19, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Your comment above that you felt the original reviewer's changes were counter to the peer review feedback piqued my curiosity, so I took a look.

In addition to copyediting, changes comprised a header change, a change of tense in the lead, addition of a category that looked valid to me at least; condensing character information, the removal of awkward out of universe plot phrasing, division of the Characters and story section into characters and plot sections; and removal of the Mother Delilah subsection including a vague reference to "various accolades" by such groups as "comic book professionals" (which could mean anything from vendors/storekeepers, to artists or scholars). I see you reverted almost all changes.

The version with the changes is closer to Good Article standard and more in line with the criteria. You don't have to incorporate all the improvements, but some of the reverted changes addressed issues with the well-written and broad yet focused criteria.

---

Overview: This is broadly a decent article. I'll assist where I can with things like light copyediting and collaborating. I'll take a back seat slightly more than usual, however, because the review's already had multiple reviewers take the helm without its completion, and having to get a fourth reviewer would be undesirable. I think with just a little work this can be pushed to be a solid Good Article. –Whitehorse1 16:22, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Howdy, pardners. I've been asked to help, and have made a first pass of what seemed some of the more prominent items 'n' issues. But this is really is, overall, a very solid and encyclopedically written article. I'll stop back around after I gather some material not already cited. Regards, -- Tenebrae (talk) 06:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Ride'em wikipedia. What needs to be done? I don't have any books on the subject, but I can probably help a bit. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:48, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Howdy. Generally items not struck out need looking at. Some changes've been made already. Feel free to ask if anything's unclear. I have to help somebody move, but should be back later today. –Whitehorse1 10:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

• I've added the various issues under the GA criteria. I'm putting this review on hold for five days, to allow time for these issues to be adressed. Please feel free to ask for clarification on any items. –Whitehorse1 19:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Well-written

• All text in the "Publication history" section is housed in its "Creation" and "Publication" subsections. The reverted (closer to the WikiProject Comics' suggested layouts) change made these a single "Creation and publication" section. That works better as duplicate section titles are undesirable and the top-level title doesn't fit the "Creation" subsection's pre-publication activities focus.
  • Optional suggestions: i) Section title "Publication history" => "History". ii) After the Siegel quote, add "Launch" subsection heading. The last part about issues comprising two groups won't fit heading then, maybe move it to the crit. analysis section? iii) Add new "Creation" (perhaps "Development" is better) subsection heading, either immediately after toplevel Section heading or just before "According to a bio..." bit. iii) Keep "Reprints" as a separate section/subsection, since those came later. Or maybe "Launch and reprints". As having many small sections is discouraged, experimenting is a good idea.

• Please explain/reword/wikilink jargon: 'pinups' (same as 'illustrations' in lead?), 'pencil and inks credits' or 'inks over pencils', 'coeval edition'. Similarly "Noted for its use of single and double-page illustrations" (which the reverted change made "Distinguished for") is confusing to a layperson who'd presume that's what's in comic books.
• Please qualify who people are for the reader when giving their thoughts, especially those not wikilinked in the text or citations. ("Widget-analyst Jo Smith theorizes…".)
• Quotations are used substantially (approx. 7 direct quotes, not inc. around 3 character ones). In places they make up most of sections. Paraphrasing material decreases reliance on them, with the advantage of more consistent prose style. Limited use is acceptable, but they're likely used to excess per WP:NFC.
• WP:LEAD: should be a concise summary of key article points, without introducing new material. Consider including these items: Mother Delilah popularity; early issues had more stories; influences included western movies, esp. Hart/Ford; critics praised series's depth, others found earlier issues (in which Simon/Kirby had greater involvement) superior.
• "They were influenced by the films of early western film star William S. Hart." Spot the redundant word. (westerns/westerns actor perhaps?)
• A further copyedit is recommended. There's a lot of passive voice. Changing some of this to active voice will increase the clarity and impact of the writing.
• WP:WTA: 'claimed' in publication history section. Also "weasel"/vague words for popularity/recognition, in crit. analysis section
• 'each final' issue in the pub. history section reads oddly. Perhaps paraphrase to say last three?
• Reprints section: The mention of the 1991 reprint seems to be given twice, once in each paragraph.

Verifiability

• Please add ISBNs for books.
• Online references need publisher and last accessed dates at the least. Please check all have these.
• A Good Article should be built and referenced using reliable third-party secondary sources, with primary sources appropriate in certain circumstances. What makes the following reliable sources?
  [As the first link there shows, this question is not an implied statement they're not reliable]
  • The Harry Mendryk kirbymuseum.org blog (various pages).
  • Reed, Gene; et al. Grand Comic-Book Database. http://www.comics.org/series.lasso?SeriesID=[various] Although Gene Reed is among its original founding members, its various about pages hint it may be a wiki/database anybody can edit?
  • Jourdain, Bill (2009-01-09). "The First Western Comic Book". The Golden Age of Comics. http://goldenagecomics.org/wordpress/...
  • Simon, J. (2003). The Comic Book Makers. Lebanon, NJ: Vanguard Productions (is this mainly an image book? Also, I couldn't find anything on the publisher Vanguard, is it a non-selfpub/vanity publisher?
  • Markstein, Don (2006-2008). "Boys' Ranch". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. http://www.toonopedia.com/boysrnch.htm
  • Vitone, R.J., "Soiled, Sweet, and Sometimes Green! S & K's Women of the Golden Age", The Jack Kirby Collector #20 (June 1998)
  • Morrissey, Richard, "Down on the Ranch", The Jack Kirby Collector #7 (October 1995), p.17
  • Evanier, Mark. dailypop.wordpress.com

    Hatfield, Charles. The Comics Journal. http://www.tcj.com

    Evanier, Mark. "The Jack F.A.Q." POVOnline.com Struck these two, per here.

  • fakestanlee.blogspot.com
• There's 1 {{citation needed}} tag in the Reprints section.

I've been through and done some tweaks like footnoting some of the primary sources (as jamming them into the text can make it harder to read) although someone might want to fancy them up a tad with {{cite comic}} (I think the dates are worth adding). I've added the ISBNs of the collected editions, updated the infobox (and there is a better version available and some fields were being used incorrectly) and done some formatting tweaks.

Looking through the list of refences they are largely fine - Mark Evanier is an old friend of Kirby's and one of the leading Kirby scholars (with an Eisner Award-winning biography to prove it) and the Kirby Collector and Kirby Museum are where you'll find the rest of the Kirby scholars, with the Toonopedia being a well-used source for early comics. My main concern is the "Fake Stan Lee" link - we'd usually not link to a blog (and blogspot links are often automatically reverted) unless they are an expert. There is no sign of this and portrying themself as Stan Lee could be confusing and misleading, equally it seems to be there to source what fans think, which isn't something we'd usually concern ourselves with unless the fan's reaction itself became notable (boycots or campaigns making the news). So I think this should be removed.

As well as making more use of the templates for formatting and adding extr details the only other thing I might recommend is extracting things some of the books to a references section that you can refer to from the footnotes section to tighten it up and reduce redundancy. (Emperor (talk) 17:37, 28 November 2009 (UTC))

Thanks for doing this, Emperor. I've struck through several you clarified. One of the Mark Evanier ones I'd already seen at the comics WikiProject, so wanted to be sure about the other one too.

On the Kirby Collector publication used twice (or 4 times counting repeat refs), are you able to clarify if the cites are to something like an article? The issue/date show it's a periodical, but I don't know if it's an article being cited or something like a fan letter/letter to the editor. A letter by a recognized scholar would be okay. In trying to determine that I found nothing on Vitone, but did find mentions of Rich/Richard Morrissey here & here, though I don't know how much those establish.

I'm in agreement with you about the blog unless anything indicating they're an expert crops up. For your last part, do you mean have separate informational footnotes and citations sections? I could do that if there're no objections and if it's thought there're enough to warrant separate sections (or was this what you meant?). I think the ISBNs in the body might be tidier footnoted too? –Whitehorse1 18:41, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

If you are making a "references" or "further reading" section to extract some of the book information to then perhaps the ISBNs can go in there? After all Simon & Kirby 1991 is one of the sources you'd be extracting (personally I prefer a separate "collected editions" section to lay out the details of the volumes but have put in an anchor tag so the link from the infobox has a target, keeping all the detail clutter out of the main body of prose does make it all easier to read while still having more information for those that need it).

On the JKC, yes it is always worth checking but the content is usually all articles. I list a few good links at Talk:Jack Kirby#Sources as these are compiled in volumes that can be searched on Amazon.com and Google Books. So you can often read the articles online and, as luck would have it, these are available in their entirity:

• Down on the Ranch in The Collected Jack Kirby Collector Volume 1, page 144
• Soiled, Sweet, and Sometimes Green! S & K's Women of the Golden Age in Volume 5, page 37-40

ISBNs and full publication details can be found on Google Books in the overview if you'd rather reference that and link through to it - which does make sense (and I'm pretty sure is done in other articles). It might be worth a quick nose through the books to make sure there aren't other useful bits if information in them.

Other sources? The only other one is the book Kirby King of Comics and Hiding has a copy (as I've hassled him for information from it before) and it could have something useful in it (although it does have a lot of ground to cover - I believe a larger work is in the pipeline) and I'm sure he'll wander through at some point. {Emperor (talk) 20:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)}

Great work finding those, Emperor. Linking the articles in this case seems an excellent idea. On the referencing aspect, I was just responding to your suggestion. There are 3 or 4 informational footnotes. I can separate those—example of that. As for changing to the citeshort style, that'd come under changing the reference style advice in wp:cite, so'd need solid consensus. It's not needed for GA in any case. –Whitehorse1 10:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Basically, yes I am very much in favour of using WP:CITESHORT, although the example you link to doesn't match what I was thinking of or the examples given in the guidelines (they seem to have split up the footnotes into actually footnoted references and footnoted details, which I am against). So yes, definitely go for it if it is how it is laid out in WP:CITESHORT, it is worth noting that you can use {{gcdb series}} to template the Grand Comic Book Database links which might simplify it (I am uncofortable with using tertiary sources like that in footnotes, as they clearly just contain the information drawn from the primary source, so it is usually better to go for that - the tertiary source then supports the use of this primary source as not everyone can check every comic book). (Emperor (talk) 20:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC))

You're right, they're different. The example showed separated footnotes, where sources are listed separately from explanatory notes (WP:REFNOTE). That's a fairly minor change. 'Shortened' footnotes (WP:CITESHORT), the one you do favor, is a complete change of the the article's citation format. –Whitehorse1 20:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yep, the refnote approach is unnecessary and confusing (for comics articles, it might useful be in other fields), switching to citeshort wouldn't be a big issue (it'd only be the work of minutes). (Emperor (talk) 00:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC))

Easy to implement, mmm. The guidelines (a, b, c) advise making sure broad consensus to switch exists, esp. if it might be sensitive or contentious, among editors is best. –Whitehorse1 02:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Well yes a consensus would be needed but wouldn't be a big issue with a quick show of hands here. Worth noting that "b" (and possibly other bits) is referring to converting between using note and ref systems - changing to a citeshort format is not the same thing, you'd just be moving the long references to a "references" section and leaving the footnotes as trimmed down citations. We may be talking about apples and oranges, but, yes, I still suggest a consensus would help. (Emperor (talk) 00:25, 3 December 2009 (UTC))

Sorry, my bad. I should have danced around it less. Without raking over old ground too much, this review has seen raised pulses, and multiple reviewers come and go. The original nom has stepped back as no longer inclined to work on it, as well. Changing citation style or citation templates can be contentious. If it does change, given events just mentioned it's best if it's done by somebody other than me.
In any event, plenty of other things that need attention: any unstruck bulleted point needs to be either fixed or explained, to progress the review. Thanks. –Whitehorse1 15:20, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Give me a stiff one, barkeep. I started with the first section, and renamed it per your suggestion.
The sentence: "Western-style adventures involving boys in ranch settings already formed part of American popular culture, with the juvenile fiction of authors such as Frank V. Webster[2] and Dale Wilkins[3] as well as 1946 MGM film Boys' Ranch[4]." Looks like OR to me. I moved it to the talk page.[3] It was using primary sources to assert that there was a trend of boy/ranch media back then. I'm going to stop now because that's kind of a big change, and wait to hear if people are OK with it before I keep going. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, trying to pin down whether the Harry Mendryk blog is relible. Here's the page cited. He blogs for the Simon and Kirby museum. According to Paul Gravett, he is an expert restorer that works for the museum. I think it can be considered reliable under WP:SPS as a subject expert. If the reviewer disagrees, we can remove it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:40, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Since Harry's under the aegis of the Kirby Museum, I think that would probably pass muster. I would cite him, however, only if his information doesn't already appear in an established, published RS, such as the Evanier Kirby book, Joe Simon's autobiography, etc. I'm on the fence with Jourdain blog, but the fact of his established, journalistic podcast makes me think that would also pass muster. I'd be interested in seeing what others think. -- Tenebrae (talk) 19:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, I think if there was a movie of the same title released prior to the comic, that certainly merits cited mention. -- Tenebrae (talk) 19:19, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Jourdain is a RS. According to this, he's written an article or two on comics in RSs, but mostly he's just a collector. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:30, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

It's no longer present, so must've been removed. Struck above. –Whitehorse1 19:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

←I'm currently trying to determine if the 'Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center' is a reliable source (RS) as defined by the reliable sources guideline. It's not in question it's a valuable resource on the topic. Regardless it would still be present in the article in some way; it's used as a key reference on its own though, so needs to be evaluated. A page on the site authored by a recognized scholar would generally be fine in itself on that basis. It has museum in the title. It's not yet clear though if it's a brick & mortar museum, federally funded or not, or purely online. The talkpage Emperor linked above contained a link to a forum post showing a launch press release. Then (2005), the address was of the apartment belonging to the person who set up the website; the site now lists a PO box, based in the same area (self-published?). According to the press release it was launched by one "R. Hoppe ..., a cartoonist and web designer who hosts Kirby discussion groups", with support from various parties which could mean several things. It would be nice if we could confirm it is an RS. Can anyone shed any light? –Whitehorse1 19:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Shoot. It's not looking good. I just went by museum in the title, but it looks like they haven't done anything yet. This sounds like they want to be a traveling museum, but it hasn't happened yet. They also say (in 2006), "Unfortunately, the opening of the Museum Shop has been slightly delayed." Most of their news is about scanning, so I think they're just website. Basically, without positive confirmation, I think we can't consider them an RS. Tenebrae already replaced one of their refs with a book, so that's good. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:38, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, we've got serious RS problems. Let's go through them.

Harry Mendryk doesn't look good.

The comic book makers By Joe Simon, Jim Simon is real book, and regardless of the publisher, being by Joe Simon makes it reliable under WP:SPS at the very least. It's probably reliable without that. It might not help with notability, but I don't think we're going there yet.

Jourdain doesn't look good.

Grand comics database. Doesn't look good either.

"The series debuted with an October 1950 cover date as a 52-page, bimonthly series. It lasted six issues (Oct. 1950 - Aug. 1951). The original cover title was The Kid Cowboys of Boys' Ranch, shortened to Boys' Ranch ater two issues; the subhead "Featuring Clay Duncan" remained throughout." - Can be cited to the comics themselves, probably.

"Penrod Shoes issued a giveaway coeval edition of Boys' Ranch #5 and #6," - Same thing, although I don't know what a coeval is.

It looks like you've strucken the rest. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:49, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank goodness, I think we can keep Mendryk. The Kirby Museum may be just a website, but I think we can consider him an expert. According to Newsarama, which is an accepted RS on comics "Harry Mendryk is the wizard whose work is responsible for the brilliant restorations in the ambitious Titan Books hardcover The Best of Simon and Kirby. A resident of New York City, Harry has been working on S&K restorations for years. He is also a serious scholar of the work of the legendary dream team, and an active blogger at The Jack Kirby Museum, where even more of his work can be seen."[4] If this was some scandal related BLP, he wouldn't fly, but in this specific instance, I think he's fine. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:59, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I've still reservations on this unfortunately. If the Kirby Museum site was confirmed as a solid RS, Mendryk's background or recognition wouldn't matter, as its reliability would extend to their employees/team. Alternatively, if Mendryk was verified as a noted expert in the field, pages he authored would meet RS standards.

It's not clear Mendryk is a recognized expert sufficient for factual claims in the article, from the Newsarama plus Paul Gravett webpages. Newsarama appear to use the term 'scholar' in a slang sense, as opposed to their meaning an academic who's authored papers on comics in academic culture-oriented journals, or even someone who lectures at the local technical college to would-be-illustrators. It comes across as being used to mean a dedicated fan/enthusiast. The webpages show "restorer" refers to using Photoshop on self-made scans. We have editors on here that digitally restore Library of Congress archive photos, which large media orgs have later used. Doubtless talented, essentially he's a keen Photoshop user. His restored images have appeared in anthologies; if the article used one, citing a claim it was "enhanced" to him would probably be fine. The various Mendryk–Kirby-Museum cites are core article references though. He's cited 7 times, for sourcing swathes of content right up to critical analysis of quality.

A small amount of RS leeway is practical when dealing with popular culture topics. For example, limited use of a weaker source alongside a strong main primary one, for a small extra detail in a statement, within a well-sourced article. The problem is uncertain reliability (in the RS sense) of Mendryk and the Kirby Museum, particularly given the extent the article relies on those. –Whitehorse1 18:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, you're the boss. I he's reliable for these relatively non-controversial statements, but we can remove them. I agree they don't mean scholar as in PhD. I think what they mean is that he's reliable in this subject area. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I think he's used for more focused as well as uncontroversial stuff. We can establish people reliable without doctorates too, absolutely. Tom Brevoort who's Executive Editor with Marvel, for example. Both him or a PhD career academic are professionals rather than amateurs (in the sense it's their full-time career field) though. Could always get a further opinion if you like (Ealdgyth maybe?). –Whitehorse1 02:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

That sounds good, or I can take it to WP:RSN. Either way, it's probably good to have a larger consensus. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Yep, would you mind taking it to RSN? That'd be great. It'll free me up to take another look at refs/imgs. Can be dependent on who you get there sometimes, but gets wider perspective and consensus regardless. –Whitehorse1 03:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

←On the plus side, irrespective of self published status, the autobio of expert Joe Simon is fine. While I couldn't establish for certain Vanguard [5] is not a self/vanity publisher, it appears to be a selective specialized small publishing house. I'll redlink them in the ref., as I think there's scope for a nice little article on them. –Whitehorse1 18:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Broad yet focused

• At 4.8KB, the "Characters and story" section makes up almost half the article's 10KB of prose. The primarily in-universe section suffers from overdetail (a lack of focus). Taking just a single example, two details are names of a couple of the character's horses. Nothing is done with the information, it doesn't give any insights, nor is it referred to anywhere else. (Think light pruning of a rose bush being needed, not a chainsaw/flamethrower.)

• The "Mother Delilah" section. The original reviewer said above they'd eliminated it as there simply wasn't enough there for a subsection. I'm inclined to agree. It begins with a vague reference to "various accolades", by such groups as "comic book professionals" which could mean anything from vendors/storekeepers, to artists or scholars, in saying "a fave of Kirby's it's popular among fans and critics alike". Naturally, well-sourced encyclopedic content should be preserved to appropriate weight and balance.

• A core topic aspect is what the stories were about, their plots. I'm not confident this is addressed effectively. Beyond stating the genre is western, and a kid gang made up the cast of characters, their adventures and escapades remain unclear. Did the stories have identifiable plots? I wonder if it's a consequence of suboptimal organization. The last part of the characters and story section mentions the caucasians and indians pitting themselves against each other, there's another bit in the middle of the Publication section; the analysis section even quotes "the basic elements that had made the romance and crime books so thematically strong were applied here as well"—though leaves us none the wiser as to what those re-applied basic elements were.

I have been nosing around to see if anyone has written an overview on kids gangs but am drawing a blank. However, I did find this in the RC Harrvey book mentioned, Chapter 10 dissects the Delilah story [6] but earlier it mentions that Boy's Ranch is pretty much a reincarnation of the Boy Commandos and that link might be well worth flagging in the article and over at Boy Commandos too as it represents a continuity and evolution of ideas they have been working on. (Emperor (talk) 20:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC))

I agree. –Whitehorse1 02:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Neutral / Stable

• The article is stable with no signs of edit warring, and is neutral.

Images

Five non-free images is a lot in an 11KB article. The Policy governing non-free content permits only minimal usage necessary to significantly increase understanding.

• Infobox front cover: The article doesn't discuss illustration style, though covers the depicted western motif. The rationale's "Purpose of use" reads "[I]nfobox ... the first issue cover is preferable" and refers back to the Comics wikiproj. guideline. The template documentation explains these fields. "Purpose of use", for example, should explain how the image's presence significantly increases the reader's understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding. While I believe it's probably used under a valid fair use basis, a stronger rationale would be good. I recommend this Signpost "Dispatches" article for helpful hints.
• Witches' W. Tales: The article makes clear it's a compendium reprinting Boys' Ranch issues. It might belong in an article on the compendium itself. There's nothing apparent in the rationale that can't be (or isn't) easily stated with words in the article. Because I can't see any way the image could be validly used here, I've placed the appropriate ({{di-disputed fair use rationale}}) tag.
• The Simon & Kirby photo is a little more complicated. Generally non-free images of living persons aren't allowed, because it's possible a photographer might take a picture and release it under a free license in the future. One of the people depicted (Kirby) is deceased. The remaining team member is still alive, and his article uses a free image, though obviously he's substantially older in that picture. It also doesn't show him at work in a studio. If the current image is used, a strong fair use rationale tied to the content is essential. It can't just sit beside a passage mentioning they drew together.
• Characters: This doesn't seem to have a valid claim of fair use. It's alongside text containing things like "Angel is a long-haired blond youth", and shows a youth with long blond hair.
• Mother Delilah: Similarly decorative only. Although the speech bubbles include names used in the text (Samson & Delilah), the article doesn't directly discuss the image or its contents.
• Generally the comic images are sourced to their respective issues. The description page lists Adobe Photoshop under Metadata. Were they scanned (if so by whom?), or taken from an Internet page (if so what site?). We want to avoid, for example, if they were digitally restored and obtained online, complaints about non-attribution from those who adjusted/posted them.

Please take a look at those, and feel free to ask if there's anything you'd like explained. Thanks, Whitehorse1. 13:16, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

OK - The images were chosen more purposefully than explained in the fair use rationales, so I'll start supplementing them in the next few days.--Scott Free (talk) 21:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

OK - All the FURs are done - Also, I checked with the guy who runs the S&K blog and who did the graphic design on the latest Simon & Kirby book - and he said the image use looks OK to him - he also mentioned that from what he knows of Joe Simon (and they worked together on the aforementioned book), Simon probably wouldn't have a problem with the article's image use.--Scott Free (talk) 23:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

It was kind of him to look over the article. In fairness to him, it's unlikely he has familiarity with Wikipedia nonfree content policy. The policy covers legal use; and, is designed to be more restrictive than what's permitted under law. In other words, it imposes greater restrictions than exist for published books. We can't, for these reasons, rely on his view the image use is fine. The ideal, is for copyright holders to release images under free licenses e.g. Creative Commons. If not, the fair use statement must be valid, regardless of if the copyright holder permits its use specifically on Wikipedia sites. Strict policy on image use means therefore a 3rd-party statement that somebody else probably wouldn't mind unfortunately isn't sufficient. –Whitehorse1 19:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Summary

This has not been a typical review. Despite complications including a banned user's involvement, however, the article substantially improved during the course of its review. Before placing it on hold, my view was the article's problems were fixable during a short hold period. It can often be the case new or other issues are introduced, particularly where new material is added, during a hold period. Although a number of problems against the GA criteria were addressed, that was the case here.

Two of the more complex areas were images and sourcing. I'd encourage contributors to discuss any gray areas at the Non-free content review forum (WP:NFCR) and Reliable sources Noticeboard (WP:RSN) respectively, to benefit from wider input as well as possibly community endorsement of the relevant material.

In order for the article to attain GA status, unstruck bulleted points will need to be looked at, making changes to the article as necessary. The article can be renominated at GAN when you feel it is ready. Alternatively, if you disagree with my decision not to pass this as a Good Article in its present form, you may challenge this at GAR.

Thank you to all contributors including WikiProject Comics members who improved the article during assessment. –Whitehorse1 23:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Result: Not Promoted.