Talk:The Last of the Masters/GA1

GA Review

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In general, I found this article interesting, but I think it still requires some work for GA.

Comprehensiveness

• PKD has a very distinctive writing style. Is there anything in these sources about the style of "The Last of the Masters"? It would be good to include a section on that, if possible.

• Do we know if this story influenced any other SF writers?

Organization

• There are so few characters in this story that I do not feel it is necessary to have a separate "Characters" section. Much that is in this section is repeating what is in the plot summary. Can you recast the plot summary to include necessary information about the characters and dispense with the "Characters" section?

• I would suggest reorganizing the "Thematic analysis" section by topic. Readers come to this section to learn about the themes and right now it is a little difficult to ferret them out because the section is organized by critic. At the top of the section, you have summarized three major threads of commentary: moral, political, and religious. Start with paragraphs on each of those thematic elements and work from there.

Sources

• The ISBN seems to be incorrect for ref 8, as it takes you to Pierce's biography of Dick. What makes the Starmont Reader's Guide reliable?

• The Barlow book is published by Lulu (company) - is this a vanity press?

Prose

• I would suggest a careful copyedit by an uninvolved editor. Here are some examples of awkward or unclear sentences. Having another editor go through the article will clear up these issues. If you can't find anyone in the next week, I can do this at the end of the review, if all of the other issues have been resolved.

• The story was written as early as a year prior, as the original manuscript was received by the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on 15 July 1953"" - awkward and repetitious
• Primarily based on a theme of anarchism, the story utilizes character dialogue to convey political and ethical philosophy on various topics - unclear
• At each toppled government center millions of records are burned and government integration robots are destroyed. The result of those events is manifest as a world full of out-of-place artifacts; anachronistic high-technology, interspersed in a pre-industrialized, agrarian culture. - awkward
• Tolby confronts and kills Bors, sending the building into confusion as the citizens react with hysteria and grief; a condition that is implied to spread outward from the city to troops in the hills, resulting in mass desertion. - run-on sentence
• No longer resisted in the confusion, Tolby reunites with Silvia. The story concludes as Fowler secretly salvages three remaining synapse coils, "just in case the times change". - not sure what opening phrase means

Image

• The fair use rationale for the image does not give a sufficient purpose of use for its inclusion in the article (it must meet WP:NFCC). The purpose of use must explain why the image is necessary to article - why words alone are insufficient, for example. See this dispatch for help, particularly the section of purposes of use at the end.

I will place this article on hold for one week for improvements. Awadewit (talk) 14:42, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the review, Awadewit. On the comprehensiveness front, the article has exhausted all the Google-accessible sources I'm afraid, and the impact of the story on science fiction author Thomas Disch is described in the Thematic analysis section. The "Pierce's biography of Dick" and the work cited in ref 8 are one and the same; our citation is perhaps misleading as the name of the series – Starmont Reader's Guide – is given as the title. I have expanded the citation with information from OCLC 8494810. On reliability, the series is published by Starmont House (see founder article, obituary), and though I could not uncover information on the scholarly credentials of the author of the Dick entry in the series, she seems in good company (Mary Turzillo, Thomas D. Clareson, Douglas E. Winter, S. T. Joshi). Lulu is not a vanity press but a self-publishing platform; I would agree that strong arguments would need to be made to justify the use of the Barlow book and the non-free image. I'll leave the decisions regarding organisation and prose to the author of the article, User:Cast. Regards,  Skomorokh  04:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

As Skomorokh before me, I want to thank you for taking the time to review this nominee. Now regarding your review, one of the first elements to address is that of importance. Quite frankly, this story is among the least important the author ever wrote. Its notability is derived almost entirely from it being written by Dick. Otherwise, it is not recorded as ever having influenced anyone, and Dick was never asked to speak on it during interivews, as he was on his more notable works. There simply isn't very much to include on the story's development, style, or its cultural impact. Otherwise I would certainly have included it. That said, I will go about reorganizing the article per your notes on the characters and thematic analysis. --Cast (talk) 05:36, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

When it comes to older science fiction, Google does not have much material - a lot of literary criticism doesn't make it onto the web. I didn't see anything in the MLA database. Have you checked other Dick biographies for more material? Awadewit (talk) 23:26, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I haven't found many sources in biographies of Dick, but I'm not going to pretend to have read most, or even those which were more detailed. However, I haven't found many of his biographies to look closely on his early pulp works individually. Even when those are acknowledged as important, focus tends to remain on stories which later headlined short story collections, like "The Golden Man", or those which later formed the basis for film adaptations, like "Second Variety". --Cast (talk) 04:48, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Continuing the process of addressing your notes, I've merged the character and synopsis section as best I could, and rewrote those sentences which you felt did not work. While I was at it, I took the time to throw in a third quote from the story. I want to keep these to a minimum, and am somewhat basing my judgment on the criteria of wikiquote, but I do feel they are useful. Given the absence of suitable images, and that this is a work of prose, I feel short quotes are most appropriate. If, however, it is felt that there are too many, we can remove the newest. I don't think there is a problem with the first two, as they are shorter. I've also changed the fair-use rationale to be more specific in regards to why I decided to include the image to begin with, and have also changed the image caption in the article. To summarize, this magazine was not just the first publication to publish the story, but it was also the only one to ever choose to prominently advertise it. The second short story anthology in Australia, and decades later, the Philip K. Dick short story collections, would not advertise the story. At such an early point in his career, this story was chosen by the editor, Donald A. Wollheim, to be the "hook" for readers. That entails a degree of endorsement on their part for the story's interest to readers. In the following days, I intend to address the thematic analysis section, and will reread the sources to try to expand on their commentary regarding Dick's writing style.--Cast (talk) 04:48, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

It has been longer than the seven days, but since the editors are actively improving the article, I will extend the GA hold. Please drop a note on my talk page when all of the revisions are complete. Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 02:31, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

On the reliability of How Much Does Chaos Scare You?, the author, Aaron Barlow, is an Assistant Professor in English at CUNY with a PhD from University of Iowa, who is listed by his employer as having expertise in SF with several works published by Praeger, a scholarly imprint. It can thus be argued that his book satisfies the requirements of WP:SPS: "Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."  Skomorokh  17:56, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

How are the revisions coming? Are the editors ready for me to look at this article again? Awadewit (talk) 13:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Everything that can be addressed has been, with the exception of the reorganisation of the Thematic analysis section; just waiting on Cast for word on that. Thanks for your patience,  Skomorokh  13:07, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for all of your attention and effort to this article, Skomorokh. I've been rather busy over the past few days, but will try to address the article quickly. I've found it necessary to reread some of the sources for the analysis section, and this has slowed my progress. My most recent update to the article greatly expands on the Palmer book, and presents a layout I will try to follow for future rewrites to the section. With only three sources yet to fully rework, I should be done soon, provided I am not pulled away immediately. On that note, I've decided to create a small Reception section for the Disch commentary, as it doesn't really comment on the story from a thematic point of view, and it was really the last sourced section, and was only added as an afterthought after (awesome alliteration!) I'd created the analysis section.--Cast (talk) 01:29, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Alright, thank you both for your generous patience. I recognize that both of you have been vary kind in helping me through this, and that it was unhelpful for me to be away during this process for such long stretches of time. When I began this GA nomination, I had far more time on my hand than I currently do, but I have pursued this as best I could. I've now completed my work with the Barlow sources, and have hidden away those works which I could not derive much information for the sake of the article. In the future, I may wish to revisit the Sutin and Pierce commentary, but that can now wait. I've also since come to learn of commentary about the story in "Mind in Motion", a Philip K. Dick biography by Patricia Warrick, but the book is unavailable in my area, and ordering it by mail will require over $50, which is an investment I cannot make at the moment for the sake of a Wikipedia article. I hope you'll both understand. So, for the moment, the article is as complete as I can make it. I hope it will now meet with your approval, Awadewit. --Cast (talk) 05:33, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Mind in Motion is available at my library. Would you like me to scan the relevant pages and email them to you? (In the meantime, I will reread the article.) Awadewit (talk) 16:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the offer. I would be very grateful if you would accommodate me by reading page 198, which I know to include the following line: "Two years after writing 'The Wub,' Dick again explored the concept in 'The Last of the Masters' (1954) and now he named it and actually called it empathy." This is the only sampled page scan provided by the Google Books entry for the book, and leaves me with tantalizingly vague understanding of what is being expressed. I hope that in reading it, you will be able to judge if the content would be of application to this article, and how much of its context would also be of use. In expanding the analysis section, I went beyond my initial treatment of focusing tightly only one references to "The Last of the Masters". Now providing an extra paragraph of context, I hope readers will have a better understanding of what the literary critics were expressing in reviewing the story. Likewise, if Patricia Warrick had much to express on a topic which "The Last of the Masters" was tied to, I would wish to understand it fully before incorporating it into the article. If it would prove too much for you to scan, I would encourage you to add the information yourself. --Cast (talk) 16:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Will do. Awadewit (talk) 16:58, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

(out indent) There was not all that much in the book, so I just added it myself. Awadewit (talk) 16:50, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Comments

This article is much improved. Here are my comments after reading it again. Most of these will take only moments to fix.

• The opening paragraph refers to "The Last of the Masters" as both a "novelette" and a "short story". This is confusing and why I had originally changed the first sentence to read "short story". The article consistently refers to it as a short story. Whether you use the term "novelette" or "short story" is not that significant - what is important is that the article be consistent.

• Ref 6, Ref 7 and Ref 8 need page numbers.

• Palmer posits that Dick often created post-apocalyptic scenarios of ruined worlds which held high-tech gadgets — natural environments in ruin and artificial objects in concentrated form — towards a philosophical end. - I'm not quite sure what this sentence means, particularly the par between the dashes. Could you explain it to me in a longer form and perhps we could work out a better way to word it?

• Palmer posited that Dick often created post-apocalyptic scenarios of ruined worlds which held high-tech gadgets in an attempt to present a view of postmodern materialism the author held, in which the outgrowth of modernity is a world in which that which is organic and natural is in ruin, and that which remains is reshaped through science into a fantastically concentrated form. - This has to be fixed! Something has happened to make the sentence more incomprehensible! Awadewit (talk) 23:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• The quotes from Barlow spell "dangerous" as "dangerious" - if that is how the text is spelled, please add "[sic]" after the word in the quotation so the reader knows Barlow made the mistake and not Wikipedia. :)

• One "dangerious" is still in the article. Please fix or add "[sic]". Awadewit (talk) 23:19, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• The last two paragraphs of "Political elements" are a little confusing. I think this could be easily rectified by adding a topic sentence to each to guide the reader.

• Aaron Barlow, Assistant Professor of English at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, examined the political and philosophical themes in the works of Dick in How Much Does Chaos Scare You?. - I would begin this section with a statement of what those political and philosophical themes are, not where they were published or who wrote them. Wikipedia readers are not so interested in that.

• The "Thematic analysis" section is still organized by critic: Dick, Palmer, Barlow, I would again urge you to stray from this organiation. For example, there is material in the Dick section that really belongs in the "Political elements" section: "Dick also pointed out the moral ambiguity of the story, laying out its political implications: "Should we have a leader or should we think for ourselves? Obviously the latter, in principle. But – sometimes there lies a gulf between what is theoretically right and that which is practical." Some of the second paragraph of "Postmodern perspective" also seems more political to me.

• I've done some copyediting as I was reading - I will go back over everything once more later.

I look forward to passing this in the next couple of days. Awadewit (talk) 17:44, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, "The Last Of The Masters" is 10600 words. Levack, Daniel J H; et al, PKD: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography (1981), page 106. Description as "short story", "story", "novelette", "novel" and such was quite arbitrary in SF magazines in the 50s but perhaps the article editor has a preference based on word count. If this is not the right place or way to mention this, please inform me of how I should have done it. Or inform me if it was poor manners to "butt in." Moss&Fern (talk) 04:15, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

You have no need to fear "butting in". Comments are always welcome on wikipedia. As the article's primary editor—not by any vague "ownership", but simply by activity level—I chose to refer to the story as a novellette by word count. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, a non-profit organization of science fiction authors, and host of the Nebula awards, includes a definition of a novelette as being between 7,500 and 17,500 words. This also happens to be noted on the wikipedia novelette entry. Note that I'm not referencing that because the wikipedia article is considered a reputable source (no wikipedia article is considered reputable enough to cite), however Wikipedia cannot contradict itself. If we decide that the SF and Fantasy Writer's definition of a novelette is invalid here, we must address the issue on that entry as well, and we must first decide what is a more accurate and reputable definition of a novelette. That is a discussion somewhat beyond the scope of this GA nomination.--Cast (talk) 05:52, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

This GA has been on hold for a while now. Are the above issues going to be resolved in the next few days? If not, I will, most unfortunately, have to fail it. Awadewit (talk) 22:37, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I want to thank you for your enormous patience during this process. As I've mentioned before, I had a great deal more time to devote to this article when I first nominated it in May. I'm now juggling this process with other priorities, and to be fair, I've also allowed myself to be distracted over the past few days in making minor edits to other articles. I feel I've addressed the majority of your latest comments, but the last two which require rewriting the analysis section seem somewhat daunting to me. Although you've described them as requiring no more than a few minutes to edit, I have found myself paralyzed at the prospect of having to do so. I nonetheless wish to try, though, and rather unexpectedly began some hours ago, leaving my unfinished edits sitting on my monitor screen until I updated them minutes ago and saw your latest comment. Rest assured, I want to pursue this nomination to a positive conclusion, and will try very much to do so over the course of this day and tomorrow. --Cast (talk) 02:24, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I understand - I've had a nom up for six weeks now and more than likely it will be reviewed the day school begins. :) Rewriting the "Thematic analysis" section will take more than a few moments, which is why I described "most" of the points as easy. If you would like some help, just ask. I very much would like to see this article promoted. Awadewit (talk) 02:31, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I've made an overture to the Anarchist Task Force for assistance, but I can't be sure of what help I'll get. --Cast (talk) 19:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

(out indent) I wished to rewriting the analysis section more, but that is clearly not something Im' prepared to do. Copyediting your own work is never such a great idea, and this is proving to be as awkward a proposition. Would you care to give it another read now and let me know if there is anything left to address?--Cast (talk) 07:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I still think the "Thematic analysis" section could be improved, but so can everything, eh? :) I'm ready to pass this just as soon as we fix up the two things left unstruck above. Awadewit (talk) 23:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Rewriting that one convoluted sentence is like pulling teeth, but I realize my problem is often that I try to pack too much into a single sentence. Breaking it down should sort the point out. Hope it reads better now.--Cast (talk) 08:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

That is much better. I am now passing the article. Awadewit (talk) 03:21, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Once more and finally, I would like to thank you for your enormous patience throughout this process, Awdewit. This has proven to be my longest and most awkwardly attempted GA nomination, and you were very gracious and helpful despite my problems with distraction, discouragement, and hesitation. I hope this will not be the last article I nominate for promotion that you will judge, but if you should avoid my user name in the future, I'll fully understand. ('～' ;) --Cast (talk) 06:13, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I hope I haven't given you the impression that I wouldn't want to review your articles - that was not my intent at all. I greatly enjoyed reviewing this article and learning more about PKD. Please do let me know how I can be more encouraging because that is my aim. Awadewit (talk) 22:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Calm down. No one suggested—at any point—that you have been anything other than calm, generous, and immensely helpful throughout this process, because that is precisely what you have been. I have not had many interactions with you, but I come away from this one with nothing but a positive experience. Again, thank you for all of your tremendous effort and good will, and I do hope to encounter you again in the future. ＼（＾∀＾）メ（＾∀＾）ノ Internet hoorays for everyone! --Cast (talk) 01:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Whew! I hope to read more of your articles as well! Awadewit (talk) 01:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)