Talk:Red Jordan Arobateau/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 16:48, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting article! I will give my initial review shortly. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:48, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, this is an interesting and worthy topic. Having read through it carefully, my immediate concerns are about criterion 1a, the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience. The lead and the first subsection, §Life, aren't too bad – I have individual concerns, e.g. what does "A neoteric figure in the early history of street lit" mean? if simply "an early proponent of street lit" then just say that! – but no overarching issues with the prose. The later subsections, though, are dense to the point of near impenetrability. Examples include but are not confined to:

"Arobateau's characters indulged in intrapersonal communication with interspaced third-person narrative" – "indulged in" seems like a weird verb to use here, I don't really like structuring this sentence in terms of what Arobateau's characters did as though that were a phenomenon unto itself distinct from the author, and after reading it three times I'm still not sure I understand what the sentence is trying to convey.
edited --U

adjusted the neoteric wording, too --U
"his storylines were thematic of phenomenological depictions of disfranchisement and social marginalization experienced by non-heteronormative characters" – what does it mean for a storyline to be "thematic of" something? what is a "phenomenological depiction" as opposed to any other depiction? Can we just say "his storylines explored the themes of disenfranchisement and social marginalization experienced by non-heteronormative characters" here?
Funk has a really interesting explanation of this - writing phenomenologically vs with "facticity" - but I think this is maybe too much detail, and a bit hard to write within the current flow. made changes. --U
"he offered aesthetics as a device of achieving embodiment" – "device of" doesn't work grammatically here; is "... as a way of achieving..." what is meant? And while we are at it, what does it mean to use aesthetics to achieve embodiment?
the important point is that Arobateau, while criticizing the forms of embodiment referred to in the previous paragraph, also used aesthetics and art to imagine new ones. edited. --U
"his paintings were thematic of symbolism, surrealism and expressionism" – again, what does this mean? (And, with my art historian hat on, aren't surrealism and expressionism two very different genres?)
They are expressionistic paintings with surreal (adjective; unrelated to the movement) elements. The confusion is from the link and phrasing. I will get to that soon. — The Most Comfortable Chair 21:28, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed the wording to clarify the surrealism issue. Hopefully the new sentence is acceptable. Alduin2000 (talk) 14:11, 29 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Horton-Stallings critiqued that Arobateau's prose was of poor quality" – again ungrammatical, though at least the average reader is likely to understand what this is intended to mean; "... wrote that Arobateau's prose was of poor quality" or "... criticised Arobateau's prose for its poor quality" would both be acceptable.
edited --U

More generally, these sections lack a coherent throughline making them more difficult to follow: to give just one example, discussion of Arobateau's non-traditional writing style comes up several times separately, whereas it would seem to make more sense to group that all together one paragraph, and similarly group e.g. all of the discussion of his portrayal of queer issues together. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:45, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your initial comments! I will try to reply and address the issues you describe soon, but give me 4-5 days to do that (been occupied with a few pressing issues in real life). I will ping Urve if they are available in the meantime. — The Most Comfortable Chair 22:04, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments, and the ping TMCC. I'll check it out tomorrow and the next day UTC, if I can find time. Not that I disagree with anything written here, but this idea ("all of the discussion of his portrayal of queer issues together") is an interesting one for an essay later ... should Wikipedia queerly (in the queering sense) represent queer issues by, for example, embracing dyschronia? I've tried an approach like this before and liked it; maybe it should be given more thought. Anyway, soon. Urve (talk) 05:17, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I've let this percolate a little, and a few more comments:

This isn't required by MOS:REFERENCES so according to the letter of the criteria I can't require it either, but citing each work referenced once and then listing all of the pages you referred to makes it really difficult to follow: e.g. Obedience to the Call of Art is cited three times, and the cite points to five different page ranges, but it's not super easy to work out which of these claims are supported by which page ranges. I would strongly suggest being more specific about which claims are supported by which page ranges.
People have weird feelings about {{rp}}. I like {{sfn}} but know what WP:CITEVAR tells me. I will leave this to TMCC. --U
I have some concerns about sourcing and due weight:
- In §Themes, the final two paragraphs about Arobateau's paintings seem to be purely sourced to Arobateau's own statements – if secondary sources haven't commented on them, is it due weight to give them such substantial coverage? (And if reliable secondary sources have commented on them, why are we not citing any of them and why is his painting work not mentioned in the section on his life?)
  I thought that as well when I was writing that — I agree that it needs to be trimmed. — The Most Comfortable Chair 21:28, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  I can't find much info about the paintings in secondary sources; will look again later. I won't go on about how I feel about WP:SCHOLARSHIP but keep an eye on Moultry's career for future inclusion. If much of the material is removed, File:Red Jordan Arobateau - The Pig - 1969.png will likely need to be removed, too. --U
  
  sorry, can't find much more; trimming and the removal of the image does seem the best path forward (WP:NFCC). --U

Thank you for all your help Urve. I should have more time now and I will start working on this from tomorrow. — The Most Comfortable Chair 03:48, 22 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

- In §Research, I don't have access to Larson's thesis but you only cite four pages of it; if this is all the discussion of Arobateau again is it really due weight to include it?
  For this I am mainly citing introductory passages or general statements that summarize subsequent research, which frequently mentions Arobateau beyond the cited page numbers. — The Most Comfortable Chair 21:28, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:53, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your patience — I am in the middle of editing the article right now. — The Most Comfortable Chair 02:33, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Caeciliusinhorto! Here is what I have done:

Simplified most sentences in the "Reception" and "Research" sections. However, I am not sure if I can do that with Rupp — the doctorate is highly technical in itself and I have tried to keep the sentence as short as possible with as few technical terms as I can use and still have it make sense. I am afraid that there is not really a way to explain "the Symbolic", "the Name of the Father" and "Lacanian frameworks" in simple terms or to go into their explanations without going off-topic. I can ask someone else or try to find a way if you would insist but I am not sure if I can do it by myself.
Grouped reviews thematically in "Reception" as you suggested — it flows a lot better now.
Trimmed away most content about his paintings (and page ranges from that problematic reference). I have kept The Pig though, and I added an academic source discussing the work in context of his prose.

Can you have another look please? Let me know if there are specific sentences or issues I can work on and I will try to get to them as soon as possible. I am going to be a lot more available for the next two weeks. Thank you for your assessments and review so far! Also, thanks a lot for your help, Urve and Alduin2000! — The Most Comfortable Chair 02:32, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to clarify that I had already grouped "Themes" and "Research" sections thematically — I have rearranged the latter for more clarity.

In "Themes": the first paragraph has a general description of elements most common across his works; the second paragraph elaborates on his characters and the environment they were based in; the third talks about cultural, social and political components incorporated in his works; the fourth discusses their philosophical, spiritual and religious dimension; the fifth has paintings and metaphors.
In "Research" (now, and in broad terms): the first paragraph describes research related to literature; the second mentions research related to transgender studies; the third details feminist theory research; the fourth contains research that focuses on identity.

— The Most Comfortable Chair 02:57, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@The Most Comfortable Chair, Urve, and Alduin2000: sorry I've been absent over the past week or so – real life has reared its ugly head, I'm afraid! I will try to get back onto this in the coming days – both giving the text another read over, and having a deeper look at the sources cited to check reliability and source–text integrity. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 08:16, 1 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, some sort of conclusion. Firstly, sorry for not having been super active recently. Secondly, the article already looks better to my eye than it did before this review started – congratulations!

This article is on a very interesting subject, and you've clearly put a lot of work into it. Digging into it, though, as well as there still being plenty of room to tighten up the prose – which on its own would not be a dealbreaker, as the GA criteria are pretty lenient on this point and that is definitely fixable – I am also finding lots of issues with sourcing. Mostly these aren't major issues: e.g. our article says his conversion alienated some of his friends when the source just says that his conversion alienated "some people" – by a strict reading it could mean that it alienated his readers or other members of the street lit community rather than friends. However, they are pervasive: looking at only four of the sources (Nelson's article in Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature; Extra's in Vice, Shockley's in Sinister Wisdom and the Nightboat obituary) I find a dozen points where I am not convinced that the source fully supports the claim the article makes, and at least one instance of concerningly close paraphrasing (Arobateau started writing when he was 13 to escape a turbulent home life vs. the source's Arobateau began writing at the age of 13 as a way to deal with a turbulent home life).

Really, I think that this article needs going over with a fine-tooth comb, checking all of the sources against the claims made, and ideally polishing up the prose somewhat. I don't think that the GA process is really the place to do that, so I would suggest that the best solution at this point would be for me to fail the nomination, and allow interested editors to work on the article without the pressure of the GA nom hanging over them. (This would also give me a freer hand to edit the article directly rather than trying to remain a disinterested reviewer!)

I have listed below my sourcing concerns related to the four articles I mentioned. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:55, 8 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

examples of sourcing concerns

He shifted to New York City before moving to San Francisco in 1967—where he spent the rest of his life—largely because of its LGBTQ+ friendly culture – I don't see that the source supports "largely because of its LGBTQ+ friendly culture". And because I'm now primed to be picky, I also notice that the article was written during Arobateau's lifetime so it doesn't strictly support that he "spent the rest of his life" in San Francisco.
[Arobateau] limited physical distribution of his copies to lesbian bars, feminist bookstores and the streets – again I'm being picky, but I don't like "physical distribution" here, which might be taken to imply that there was some sort of non-physical distribution through more traditional channels. (From a prose point of view, I also think "distribution of his copies" is clunky; "distribution of his works" or "distribution of his writings" would be more natural).
Citing persecutory policies of then-mayor Richard J. Daley, Arobateau decided to move out of Chicago – this isn't strictly supported by the source; the persecution is mentioned by Shockley, not Arobateau, and she is talking about the persecutory actions of the Chicago police force, rather than strictly that the city's policies were more homophobic than elsewhere.
His conversion alienated some of his friends – this is a perfectly reasonable inference that you could absolutely justify outside of wikipedia, but Shockley doesn't explicitly say that the people alienated by Arobateau's conversion were his friends; they could have been e.g. his readers or other members of the queer or street literature scene.
Arobateau used drugs until his hospitalization, after which he had become clean – the source says he "has tried drugs", which has very different connotations to me.
Arobateau often depicted his experiences and those of people in his life through autofiction – does the source really support "often" here? It's talking about two specific stories in which he depicted his own experiences.
this differed from works of other black women writers of the time who generally wrote idealistic fiction – the source describes other black women writers as creating works that "focus on allegorical symbolisms, women in search of a quest, or the ennobling of black women". Is that the same as "idealistic fiction"?
Motifs of contemporary social justice topics such as black feminism, women's liberation movement and different LGBTQ+ movements would sometimes serve as backdrops for his plots – I may have missed it, but I can't see where the source discusses black feminism as a backdrop for any of Arobateau's plots?
When he was 15, he read a pulp magazine that had a brief mention of a lesbian character – feeling seen for the first time, he began to identify as a butch lesbian - source supports that he identified as a butch lesbian, and that the pulp magazine experience pushed him to begin identifying as a lesbian, but not that this early identification was as a butch
His parents divorced when he was 17 - source says "separated" which is not the same as divorced
Based on Arobateau's personal experiences, struggles of a mixed-racial identity often formed the basis of his various fictional stories - source says "in some of his fiction" - not as strong as "often"!
although he remained mostly self-published throughout his life - I don't see that this is supported by the source

Hi, Caeciliusinhorto. Our friend has seemingly and unfortunately left Wikipedia. I don't want to step on any toes by formally closing this - can you take care of the procedure? I have many projects in the works, but I plan to come back to this important writer and nominate it again. I appreciate your comments; I haven't read most of the sources used in the article, so I'll have to take a close look later for consistency. Urve (talk) 05:26, 5 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Urve: sorry - I had thought I had closed this but looks like I missed a step. Should be good now. Do ping me if you want another set of eyes on this before you nominate it again! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:13, 8 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]