Talk:Utsuro-bune/GA1
GA Review
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Reviewer: Midnightblueowl (talk · contribs) 13:17, 8 February 2013 (UTC) I'll tackle this one! Looks to be a very interesting read Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:17, 8 February 2013 (UTC)
Checklist
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| 1. Well-written: | ||
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1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. | I have gone through and personally made some changes to the prose, but there are still a lot of problems; ideally this page needs a full peer review. |
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1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. | * "mysterious object" should be "unknown object". * "is said" needs to be replaced with something more concrete, i.e. a reference to which historical sources record this. * Where on the eastern coast of Japan was this event supposed to take place ? * Change "According to the legend, a beautiful, young woman arrived at a local beach in a strange 'boat'." to "According to legend, an attractive young woman arrived on a beach in the "hollow boat". The views of academics should come before that of the Ufologists. The first paragraph of the "legend" section is too long, and should be divided. "Backgrounds" could be renamed to "Potential explanations" and should be re-ordered; the fringe theories of Ufologists should be placed last, for instance. |
| 2. Verifiable with no original research: | ||
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2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. | |
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2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). | I am unsure that some of the websites used, such as this, count as reliable sources ? It would be better if this article relied to a greater extent on academic specialist literature on the subject of Japanese folklore, and less on sources (Fortean Times and Skeptical Inquirer) devoted to Ufology and other non-academic, fringe subjects. Furthermore, this article cites whole articles rather than specific pages within them. |
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2c. it contains no original research. | |
| 3. Broad in its coverage: | ||
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3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. | I'm unsure if this fully documents the folkloric background to the tale. |
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3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). | |
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4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. | |
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5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. | |
| 6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio: | ||
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6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. | |
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6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. | |
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7. Overall assessment. | |
Second opinion
[edit]Judging from the above I m guessing the major concern is 2b. The Good article criteria only requires references for certain statements (direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged) so if an unreliable source is used on something that doesn't fall under this definition it can be ignored. Likely to be challenged is quite subjective though. I will offer a second opinion on the references, if there is more that you are concerned about let me know. The final decision on whether to list this will lie with Midnightblueowl (talk · contribs). AIRcorn (talk) 11:56, 7 March 2013 (UTC)
- 2b does sound like the concern; for instance the source yaji-kita seems to be a blog (unreliable in principle, though this one seems to be discussing the issues seriously). The prose is not bad, and overall the sourcing looks reasonable; and given that the sources mostly are short, not sure that page numbering would help much. More of an issue is having a shared English translation of good quality for readers and editors to consult - the manuscripts could be on Wikisource with translations as they're out of copyright. Broadly agree with User:Aircorn that if no-one is likely to challenge then the sources are allowable. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:22, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
- Difficult. It can be argued that the references meet the GA criterium 2b, but it can also be challenged that reliable sources are given. It really is a borderline situation. The only somewhat scientific source I could find after a short search, is the mentioning of "mysterious "hollow boat" (utsuro-bune)" in the first note of an essay which can be found here: [1]. However, this text is not directly relevant to this Wikipedia article.
- It seems there's just extremely little published in modern (English) scholarship. There might be many reliable Japanese sources, but those aren't very useful here, unless a proper translation is provided.
- If it's any help to you, I have to say I'm reluctant to rate this article as a GA - I probably wouldn't pass it - but this is my personal opinion, certainly not a good, objective reason.Michael! (talk) 13:08, 17 March 2013 (UTC)
Although I'd really like to see this one pass, at its current stage I just can't push it through; the problems are still there. Sorry, and all the best for your future Wiki exploits! Midnightblueowl (talk)