Talk:The Hobby Directory

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Hobby Directory/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Urve (talk · contribs) 12:47, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Hello there. I will be taking this up soon... the article is in very good shape, and I believe most of my comments will be pretty simple. Looking forward to reading more about this.

It doesn't matter for the review, but if you care about such things: Some of the references are in WP:CS1 and some are in WP:CS2. Consistency is not a requirement at GA, but I thought I should mention it anyway. Urve (talk) 12:47, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

•  Done Colin M (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Publication

• The flow here could use some work; the sentences are fairly disjointed and staccato. If you're not sure what I mean, let me know - I would be happy to take a stab at it or clarify
• The run held by the GLBT Historical Society suggests the magazine later appeared quarterly. - There are a few issues that I have with this.

First, and easiest to address, is that it is unreferenced. But more importantly, in terms of narrative, we don't yet know who the GLBT Historical Society are - we learn abruptly that an organization has a run, and the only relevance of this mention is for what appears at the end of this sentence. If I could suggest something, maybe we could rewrite it: According to the copyright registration filed with the United States Copyright Office, the publication initially appeared twice a year, in June or July and in December, though at least one run indicates that the magazine later appeared quarterly. (With citations as appropriate.) I think this is more useful - it allows us to develop the narrative more cleanly, we can savor the GLBT Historical Society mention later, and the pertinent information doesn't need to be obscured by who, precisely, holds the run.

• Not sure. This has since been updated (by GKoskovich) to add a reference and some more detail. I would be a little concerned that wording like "at least one run indicates..." could mislead the reader into thinking there are multiple runs held in different collections? I would personally think the current wording is okay, but I'm open to changing it if you feel strongly about it. FWIW, I made the slight change of wikilinking GLBT Historical Society (previously it was only linked in the later section), which might help a bit with easing the reader in to the context. Colin M (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• • I interpreted the word "run" to mean one specific issue (ie, one run of the press), and so that they had one issue in the archives. Since I'm wrong, no sweat on the particular wording. I still think we could join the two sentences together, but it's also okay as it is. Urve (talk) 19:40, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• Otherwise, I think that the section is good.

Contents

• This remains a bit staccato, but I am not entirely sure how we can fix it.
• There is some extensive mention of The Hobby Directory in the book, Language Before Stonewall, and it is very relevant for consideration here. For instance:

"And the personal ad placed in the Hobby Directory (June 1948—Meeker 2006: 24) reached its intended audience because its messages were displayed discretely, with a content that the interested would find accessible, not in a coding so densely worded as to attract the suspicions of the uninformed, and per- haps the authorities." p. 87

"writers tempered their messages so that some readers like Mr. and Mrs. Reader’s Digest would find nothing problematic in the statements if they reviewed them, while those who understood the reveal and conceal process would find additional information within the phrasings. All this was accomplished with familiar words and phrases, not by invoking peculiar wording, secret codes or expressions drawn from closed-book sources." p. 132

email me if you need access to it

• Nice find! Thanks for pointing this out. It looks like a lot of what Leap says here is ultimately a repackaging of Meeker, but I do think the quote you included above is an interesting idea that we can cite to Leap, and I've done just that in the "Gay audience" section. (Incidentally, Meeker is the only source I haven't been able to access, and it's a big one. I hope to do a trek to my local reference library to go over it soon. My excuse is that they've only just recently reopened, and still have very strict capacity limits due to Covid. :() Colin M (talk) 20:01, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• Interestingly, although you mention that "boys" were an audience in the lead, that's not in the prose. Language Before Stonewall notes this on p. 24.
  • Do you think it should be somewhere in the body? I'm not aware of any sources that elaborate much on this point, and it's sort of alluded to in a few places like the name of the organization (National Association of Hobbyists for Men and Boys), and the bit about Ewing's rebuke of members who lied about their ages. Colin M (talk) 20:01, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    The NAHMB implication is probably true, but I don't think it's quite as direct as it seems... something being an instrumentality of an organization need not mean that all aspects of the organization are covered. And as for Ewing, the material isn't directly indicative of boys -- it's about "younger" members, or about sharing memorabilia relating to boys (but not necessarily from boys? unclear). Do you see what I mean here? I don't want to come across as splitting hairs for the sake of it, but I think there is a reasonable distinction to be made between the lead wording and what's in the article. If the intention of the publication was to connect men and boys, I don't think that the organization name nor Ewing's notice fully corroborate that, as written. Urve (talk) 21:20, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    I added a quote from one of the advertisements for the magazine which was directed to "men and boys only". Colin M (talk) 22:31, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• {{clear}} may be helpful; on my screen, at least, the image on the left overflows, causing the next section heading to move to the right substantially
  •  Done Great idea. Colin M (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• Only the first two sentences are cited - can we get the rest?
  • My reading would be that these don't need to be cited to meet WP:GACR (per comment thread below about Orange, NJ), but let me know if you disagree. Colin M (talk) 22:26, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Gay audience

• exploited - maybe me, but this seems editorializing or judgmental?
  •  Done Yeah, I was a little hesitant about this word choice. I meant it in the neutral sense of the word ("To make full use of; to derive benefit from."), but I can see how it could be ambiguous with the sense of "To take advantage of in an unfair or unethical manner". I've changed it to just "used". Though maybe there's a better option. Colin M (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• last sentence of first para has no references
  •  Done This claim occurs in some form or another in basically every secondary source on this topic, so I just arbitrarily chose Johnson as the cite. Colin M (talk) 20:09, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• featuing - typo?
  •  Done Colin M (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• David K. Johnson - we can refer to as just Johnson, or we can keep it this way - your choice
  • I prefer to keep the full name in this case. The last mention was two sections earlier, and readers are known to jump around rather than reading from top to bottom. Colin M (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Scarcity

• any other information about this collection? is it available for viewing to the public, digitized, are they still acquiring materials, how many issues are there? I appreciate if it's not known - just want to know if we can say any more to say
  • FWIW, this section was added in its entirety by GKoskovich. I believe they're more familiar with this angle than I am (it appears they're a member of the GLBT Historical Society based on the link on their user page). But I added a bit more detail (number of issues and date range). My understanding is that the magazines are not digitized/available online (I briefly considered ponying up 50 cents a page to get them to send me some scans I could upload to Commons, but ultimately decided I'm not that dedicated), though I feel this level of detail is probably not worth getting into in the body.

  Incidentally, I'm curious how you feel about the claim about their collection representing the "only known surviving issues"? I feel a bit iffy about stating this without a citation (and am pessimistic about there being any appropriate source out there to cite this claim). Colin M (talk) 20:49, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• maybe turn the section into "scarcity and legacy"? then we can discuss the transformation of hobbyist magazines into physique ones and an artist including it
  • Regarding the first source, I don't think the author (or Johnson, whom they're quoting) is exactly arguing that these magazines were a precursor to physique magazines. I think what they're more saying is that this was part of a larger historical context of gay men trying to reach out to each other through classified ads or pen-pal clubs (a practice which started in hobbyist magazines and later migrated to physique mags). I think it would be good to include this context, though I would be inclined to do it in the "Gay audience" section (it's not exactly a legacy thing, since some of the context here comes before Hobby Directory).

  Regarding the second source, I did take a gander at that earlier when I was digging for sources, but ultimately it felt like trivia since it's just a passing reference.

  I like the idea of a legacy section in principle, but I don't feel I've been able to find the sourcing to support one. Colin M (talk) 20:28, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

  that's fine; wanted to throw these two your way and hear your thoughts. makes sense, and exclusion is fine for the second, and inclusion (or exclusion, since there's already a similar claim) for the first would be agreeable Urve (talk) 21:12, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Lead

• in the infobox, the 1952 date is given by reference, but it's not in the body - we should note that in the text, probably in the scarcity section?
  •  Done (Though not by me - this has been since improved by GKoskovich). I actually removed the efn on the infobox since the evidence around the publication's end date is now well presented in the body. Colin M (talk) 19:11, 18 July 2021 (UTC)
• the Orange, New Jersey location is only stated in the infobox
  • Not sure. My feeling was that this was sort of self-documenting, since the included cover scan gives an address in "Orange, N.J.". I had a similar thought about the final two sentences of the "Contents" section. I agree that a citation would be an improvement, and will try to add one if I find an appropriate source, but I think given the (primary source) evidence present right in the article, it doesn't belong to the category of "counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged" that WP:GACR requires citations for. But let me know if you disagree. Colin M (talk) 19:18, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    You can cite the cover itself if you'd like, but it's not required to have it in any event. I bring it up because WP:INFOBOXREF suggests it, with the caveats you noted (unlikely to be challenged so no sweat). But the location is wrong; it's South Orange, New Jersey, not Orange, according to the cover - they are separate. Urve (talk) 19:37, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

    Whoops, that's what I get for acting like it's such an obvious piece of information! Thanks for the correction. I've updated the infobox and will keep an eye out for a secondary source. Colin M (talk) 20:12, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• I don't think we can claim popularity among gay men in the lead - that's not really reflected in the body, IMO. we have some close statements, but nothing quite the same
  • I'm surprised to hear you say that - it seems like a claim that's pretty central to the article. I see the "Gay audience" section as basically verifying this claim, particularly its first sentence. (Personally, based on the examples I've seen from the magazine, I think Harris's characterization as "little more than a bizarre dating service" is an exaggeration, but hey, it's not my place to override what RS say.)

  I wonder if we're reading the sentence in different ways? Just to be clear, my intention was to say that a relatively large proportion of the magazine's audience were gay men - not the mirror claim that a large proportion of all gay men were readers of the magazine. Colin M (talk) 20:55, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

  Colin M, yes, I am reading it as that in the gay community it was popular or similarly that a large proportion of gay men were readers. The intended meaning makes sense, but it does not read that way to me. Perhaps something like (specific wording doesn't matter): Ostensibly intended to connect men and boys with shared interests, its audience was primarily gay men, who used the magazine to post covert personal advertisements at a time when homosexuality was socially taboo and legally proscribed. Urve (talk) 21:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

   Done Aha, that makes sense. I've updated the wording. Hopefully it's clearer now. Colin M (talk) 21:17, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

• legal proscription of homosexuality is not really mentioned - the closest we get is the Comstock laws, but we only mention those in the context of mailing obscene materials, not quite proscription of homosexuality per se
  • Good point. This was just intended as background, but it's worth elaborating on in the body. I added another paragraph to the "Gay audience" section attempting to give some context about the situation of gay men in the US at the time of the Directory's publication. My hope is to explain why the Directory (and similar publications) was an important outlet for gay men, and why it was necessary to use coded language. The prose could probably use some polishing. It's also entirely uncited, but my hope was just to provide a very high-level overview, so I don't think there are any claims in there that should be controversial (except maybe the label given to Mattachine, which I can source if necessary). Colin M (talk) 22:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Otherwise

I'll put this on hold for now. Please let me know what you're thinking for all of my comments above. I will probably have more as the review goes on Urve (talk) 14:07, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

---

Thank you for picking up this review, and for your excellent feedback so far.

I should mention that I only created (and nominated) this article on Thursday, but to my absolute delight and surprise, User:GKoskovich made some substantial additions in the following days (thank you!!), which I didn't get a chance to see before you started the review. So this may explain some of the slight inconsistencies you noted (e.g. mix of citation styles), which I'll try to harmonize.

Regarding the staccato style, that's definitely on me. I personally like short 'just the facts' sentences (and sometimes short paragraphs) for an encyclopedia article, but I recognize it's not everyone's cup of tea, and that it can be taken to excess. It might help if you could give me one specific example from the article, along with a suggestion of how you might rework it to flow better?

I'll work through the other issues you've raised and reply inline to mark them as done (or needing more information or whatever), and will ping you when it's ready for another look. Looking forward to bringing this up to GA! Colin M (talk) 18:36, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Colin M, as for staccato - I realize this is going to be a personal preference thing (I prefer longer sentences that touch on several points - see bugchasing), so a just-the-facts approach is going to be fine, too. My perspective is this: Take a look at #Contents - there is not really a narrative being developed in between sentences, and the first two are short in succession. There has got to be a way to link these together... for instance, consider something like The Directory, a typewritten magazine consisting almost entirely of classified ads, described its mission in [year] as being "to help its members find hobby friends".

The specific wording is not really important - what I am trying to communicate is more that there are several facts being presented here, but not in a unified manner. Now, that's not a technical limitation to the GA criteria - the prose is understandable to me, and perhaps it's emblematic of what we mean by concision - so, as I say, you have a lot of control over the wording. As with most things, these are suggestions, not mandates, that I believe would improve the article - so I might as well mention them, while we have the chance to work, in this space, together. Urve (talk) 18:49, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the example. Yeah, I think we definitely differ in our philosophies on this. I have a problem with a reformulation like The Directory, a typewritten magazine consisting almost entirely of classified ads, described its mission in [year] as being "to help its members find hobby friends". because (at least the way I read it), the use of apposition makes the claims of "typewritten" and "consisting almost entirely of classified ads" seem like they're minor asides relative to the central claim about the magazine's mission statement. But the fact that the magazine consisted entirely of classified ads is a really important fact, not something I want to just drop in passing. Colin M (talk) 21:12, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Understandable. Though I think some attention to narrative cohesion is something, regardless of the specific sentence-level rhythmic issues that I (and only I) perceive, that would improve this article. Staccato and narrative - let us leave that aside, as they were neither required by the GA criteria to begin with, nor were they things that particularly mattered. Urve (talk) 21:25, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

@Urve: I believe I've addressed all your comments above in one way or another (either by making a change to the article, or replying with a request for further info or an explanation for why I don't think the suggested change is necessary). Also, just FYI, I will likely be offline from tomorrow until Thursday or so - apologies if that slows down the review. Colin M (talk) 22:36, 18 July 2021 (UTC)

Looking to close this

I agree mostly with what's above and consider it resolved. Before we officially close this out, I have two remaining thoughts. They are not "concerns", really, but matters I think we should talk about.

The first is broadness. Do you think that the "main aspects" of the periodical are covered, even if Meeker has not been included? My inclination is yes, because broadness is a much lower standard than comprehensiveness. If you think broadness is not apparent, we can put this on hold until you have time to look at it.

The second is citation. I think it's fair to exclude very obvious matters, like the location of publication, because it's extremely unlikely that one will contest it. But there are two remaining matters:

1. The last portion of "Contents". Describing what is "typical" for an ad is reasonably questionable, and so I think it should be cited. But also, we explain specific word choices -- C.D. -- that are depicted in the sidelines. Since these pertain to specific, identifiable, and probably living people, WP:BLP probably applies, and C.D. needs some kind of citation. I don't want to be a pain, but I was unable to verify all of these details based on my institutional access - so I am contesting it now.
2. The gay history section is not likely to be contested. I think a broad citation looking at the period would be useful for those browsing the page, but it doesn't particularly matter. (This includes the Mattachine society.)

1. As an aside, it may be relevant to use the language of the time to provide additional context. Such as homophilia, which organizations adjacent to the Mattachine society used. It only began to fall completely out of favor in around 1970 - the time of things like this. Whether that additional context is bloating or not, your call, of course... the sources are unlikely to position this periodical specifically within the scene of homophile activism, where most use of the term was.

Let me know what you think. Urve (talk) 15:00, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think the main aspects are covered. While I haven't gone through Meeker itself, I've read a few sources that extensively cite Meeker, and a couple reviews of Meeker, so I have a pretty good idea of the ground it covers, and I don't think it touches on any major areas that aren't already covered in the article.

Re the Contents section, I've added a citation for the "C.D." abbreviation. For the third sentence, my thinking was that this description of the content of ads would not be controversial, particularly because the article includes examples of advertisements which follow this shape.

You make a good point about the homophile terminology, but I think it's better not to get into it here. The Mattachine society is only mentioned in passing in one short sentence, and if we were to use the term homophile it would require some inline explanation, which I think would just drag the conversation a little too far from the topic at hand. Colin M (talk) 15:22, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

I will pass this. Ping in about a day if I forget to - I am swamped with work right now, and don't trust myself to do it on my phone. Excellent work, here. A great nugget into the lives of gay men when there was so little information and connection available in public. Urve (talk) 01:46, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

• Wonderful. Thank you for your perspicacious review. I think the article has improved a lot as a result of your suggestions. Colin M (talk) 15:57, 25 July 2021 (UTC)