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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by GrahamColm 09:14, 14 October 2012 [1].

Franz Kafka

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Franz Kafka (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): PumpkinSky (talk · contribs) and Gerda Arendt (talk · contribs)

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it is finally ready for FAC. It had a GA review by Grapple X and several people active in its PR review, especially Brian Boulton. Also active at PR and post-PR improvement were: Truthkeeper88, Sarastro1, Malleus Fatuorum, and Lou Kash (who speaks Czech). Kafka wrote in German but was from Prague, now in the Czech Republic. This round of improvement began by Gerda and I on Aug 1st as part of this year's CORE contest, in which this article took 2nd place in the CORE competition (see article talk). This is Gerda's first or second FAC nomination, depending on how you count things. We are grateful to these people and several others who helped get this article this far. PumpkinSky talk 22:22, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am in here late for RL reasons, like to see all the progress that happened already, and hope to move it further. - I got FA credit for Messiah (Handel) before, only because Tim riley (missed!) and Brianboulton are such gentlemen, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that we start a busy weekend in RL (on 2 continents), keep ideas coming but don't expect immediate replies, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:37, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Image review

Addressed comments moved to talk page

Prose comments

Addressed comments moved to talk page

Mark Arsten comments

  • Owing to page length several comments have already been moved to talk
  • Ok, finished my read through, here's the rest of my comments:
  • "The nature of Kafka's prose allows for varied interpretations and critics have placed his writing into a variety of literary schools.[93] Marxists, for example, have sharply disagreed over how to interpret Kafka's works." With whom have they disagreed?
Fixed, see similar comment from Crisco.PumpkinSky talk 02:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You forgot to link Marquez and Burrows in the body.
  • "Others, such as Thomas Mann, see Kafka's work as allegorical; a quest, metaphysical in nature, for God." I think the semi could be changed to a colon here.
Done.PumpkinSky talk
  • I think you should standardize spaced endashes vs emdashes, either is ok.
Got a script for that? They look the same to me. PumpkinSky talk 23:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No script, unfortunately, compare the dashes in "They argue Kafka's work is more deliberate and subversive—and more joyful—than may first appear." and "However, James Hawes argues many of Kafka's descriptions of the legal proceedings in Der Process – metaphysical, absurd, bewildering and nightmarish as they might appear – are based on accurate and informed descriptions of German and Austrian criminal proceedings" Mark Arsten (talk) 03:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "This is achieved due to the construction of certain sentences in German which require that the verb be positioned at the end of the sentence." Do you need the "achieved" here?
  • "The selection committee and recipients come from all over the world, but is limited to living authors who have had at least one work published in the Czech language." Should this be "but are"?
  • The bit about the asteroid doesn't seem to flow where it is, not sure if there's a better place though.
that's why it's at the endPumpkinSky talk 23:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mark Arsten (talk) 15:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there a good way to avoid starting two sentences with "Kafka" like this? "Kafka dedicated the book to his father.[138] Kafka prepared a final collection of four stories for print"
  • Support pending resolution of my final nitpicks. Prose, presentation, flow, MOS issues seem to be fine to me. I can't comment on comprehensiveness, but otherwise this seems to be FA quality. Good work folks. Mark Arsten (talk) 03:26, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Initial comments

Wow, this is a really good read.

  • Was his nationality Austro-Hungary throughout his life? (all but the last few years)
  • Source for JD Salinger? (fixed, added in body, with ref)
  • Fiction, novel, short story aren't really genres, are they? Isn't this redundant to Occupation anyway? And shouldn't the latter include insurance agent? (fixed the writing stuff, he's not noted for law and insurance, I used to have that in and was told to take it out at PR)
  • The notable works don't display very neatly on my screen. (not sure about that one)
Done and since it's collapislbe, shouldn't be an issue, notice I said shouldn't. PumpkinSky talk 23:43, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why not just "He also regretted having to devote so much attention to his day job"?
  • "major impact on his writing . . . heavily influenced his writing" - repetitive?
  • What does the lang|de code do?
  • Table at the end: again, those (film, music...) are "genres", are they?
  • Four Kafka-written books are used in the sources. Shouldn't you indicate that you're citing the introduction by an editor (and name him), not Kafka himself? Shouldn't you mention the original publication date as well in the cite?
    • As to the year, no as the notes weren't written in the original publication date. As to the editor, name isn't given that we know of and that it's in "publisher's notes" or "xii" indicates it's not in the body. That is the case with the first three. As for the 4th, currently ref 179, it's quoting what Kafka wrote, not what an editor wrote, as translated later on, so that's a valid cite.PumpkinSky talk 18:20, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
—indopug (talk) 17:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Jim An excellent piece of work, Although I've read his better-known works, I knew little of the man and found this very informative. Some quibbles though Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:09, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I find it odd that on English Wikipedia that you decided to give preference to the original German book titles linked through to the English Wikipedia article on the book, with its English title. The common name in English, for example is The Trial, not Der Process. I wouldn't expect, for example, in a article about Dostoyevsky to see Prestupleniye i nakazaniye (Crime and Punishment)
  • As said somewhere above, you can't really form a true sentence for all his life with English titles because nothing was translated during his lifetime. I was open to having the English titles in the infobox, but was told that it has to be one standard, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We had this discussion back in the beginning. I looked at other FAs that were by non English writers and there was a mix of ways this was done. We chose to go with this one. PumpkinSky talk 23:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • High German—needs link or gloss
  • only went on holidays, with his father, four times a year.—very odd construction, splitting the two temporal terms
Ce'd.PumpkinSky talk 23:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd wikilink tuberculosis and pornography
Linked porn. Turberulosis was already linked. PumpkinSky talk 23:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. PumpkinSky talk 23:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Glad you liked it. PumpkinSky talk 23:17, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is the sort of article which is bound to have endless nitpicking, but I'm happy that there are no serious issues, and I've supported above Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Comments from MathewTownsend

  • Repetitious wording e.g. under "Family"
  • "Kafka was born into a middle-class, Ashkenazi Jewish family in Prague
  • I don't understand the problem,
  • (next paragraph) "Born in a house on the Old Town Square, Franz ..."
  • Repetitious wording e.g. under "Education"
  • "receiving good grades."
  • (next sentence) "Although receiving compliments for the quality of his Czech,"
Speaking a non-native language well does not necessarily translate to good grades. It's not repetitive.PumpkinSky talk 23:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem is repeating the work "receiving" - as in "receiving" good grades; (next sentence) receiving compliments in two sentences in the row. Not engaging, even brilliant writing at a professional level. MathewTownsend (talk) 12:06, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Paragraphs not organized e.g. under "Family"
  • "Hermann was the fourth child of Jakob Kafka"
  • (next paragraph) "... Franz was the eldest of six children"
thinking. PumpkinSky talk 23:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem is what is the significance of this detail about the father? Seems like an insignificant detail that has no implication -- it's irrelevant unless it's shown why it matters. Being the "fourth child" of how many children? etc. How did this impact Kafka?
  • Also why not the name the mother and the father together? for the father? ... Herman was the fourth child of Jakob Kafka (fourth of Julie also? or not?)
Julie was Franz's mother, not Hermann's mother. Discussing his grandad ties in his Jewish heritage strongly as he was a ritual slaughterer. Already been through through this with another reviewer. PumpkinSky talk 23:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
MathewTownsend (talk) 15:09, 11 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Declaration - I was heavily involved at the peer review stage and had some input to the article, not enough, though, to qualify my support. This strikes me as an article that will continue to be worked on long after it is through FAC; I see no reason to delay its promotion on that score. The main editors deserve all credit for their hard work in rescuing this article from chaos, into a coherent and valuable account of an important life. Brianboulton (talk) 15:29, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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