Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich/archive1

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 not promoted 02:58, 2 March 2008.

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One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

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Self-nominator : I'm nominating this article for featured article because I feel the novella is an important book. It looks good and feels like it should be featured. LOTRrules (talk) 23:25, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose This article is not comprehensive - it does not explain the themes of the book or the style of the writing. The majority of the article is plot summary and a list of characters. Also, the article is not based on solid scholarship. Someone has already provided a helpful list of books from which to begin this research on the talk page of the article. Awadewit | talk 07:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Done I've written the theme.
• Not Done the citations though I'm going to get the citations later on. Watch this space LOTRrules (talk) 19:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with GrahamColm that this article has been nominated too early. Substantial additions such as the ones suggested above and substantial research should not be undertaken during the FAC process. Such revisions will take weeks, if not months. Awadewit | talk 20:57, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I agree with Awadewit and clearly there is much work needed for this article to reach FA status. I see the list of sources I suggested [1] has been simply pasted into the article. This was not my intent. The list was meant to guide editors to useful sources. This one:Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead has nothing to with Solzhenitsyn; I suggested it because it's a literary precursor to the novella. Although, Alexis Klimof, One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich; A critical Companion. ISBN 0-8101-1214-0 did make it to the references, little use seems to have been made of this, (IMO), valuable source. The article has been nominated for FAC too early. Please take these comments, and others that may follow, as constructive and encouraging. When you think it's ready, I suggest a peer review and nomination as a Good Article. Please don't give up on the article.--GrahamColm^Talk 20:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay I'll do it in 3 days. And I'll remove the referances that you pointed out. LOTRrules (talk) 20:56, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Two fair use book covers are being used. WP:NFCC#3A states “As few non-free content uses as possible are included in each article and in Wikipedia as a whole” and NFCC#8 states “Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic”. Stated purposes are “Illustrate infobox in article “ and “Used for purposes of illustration in an educational article about the entity represented by the image. The image is used as the primary means of visual identification of this article topic.” Why couldn’t just one image accomplish these purposes? ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 03:07, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

One is the orginal and the others is by Willits - since it was written by Solzhenitsyn the book cover is in the infobox, however the Willits translation was the only translation accepted and authorised by Sol. In total there were approximately three maybe four translations and the Willits one (the second cover) was considered the best of the lot. LOTRrules (talk) 19:12, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

Your response does not address the concerns. How does a second book cover, regardless of the author of the (non visible) text therein, significantly contribute to our understanding of the topic? The existence of any number of versions does not justify additional FU. ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 20:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose Numerous issues, mostly concerning 1A. Thorough copy-editing and expansion appear to be needed.
  • Inconsistent English variant usage amongst same words (e.g. “labour camp” and “labor camp”) and throughout the article (e.g. British spelling “centres”, “de-stalinisation”, etc. and American spelling “authorize”, “humanize”, etc.)
  • Number agreement issues, e.g. plural camps called “the Gulag”, “they” referring to a single newspaper, etc.
  • Periods not used correctly (e.g. “1953.[5] for writing…”), at all (e.g. “liked[8] ‘Somebody…’”), or redundantly (e.g. “magazine.[5].”)
  • Grammar problems, e.g. “Solzhenitsyn described him as being cruel and full of malice, he was known” should use a semi-colon
  • Jargon, e.g. dispensary
  • Summary style problems, e.g. unduly long discussion of “Old Man Whiskers”
  • Awkward prose, e.g. “After being released from the exile that followed his imprisonment” (why was he exiled, by the way?)
  • Questionable prose: “but whether this is merely Shukhov's hope is left for the reader to decide.” Seems to be OR, or, at best, prose not befitting an encyclopedia
  • OR: “a minor punishment compared to others mentioned in the book”
  • Comprehensiveness: insufficient discussion of themes (e.g. Russian literary realism), no discussion of style, seemingly insufficient discussion of political impact on author, Russia and internationally, etc.
  • Theme section has no citations
  • Heavy reliance on primary sources; minimal third party sources required per WP:V/WP:RS
  • Unambiguous fair use violations ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 21:30, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose So sorry, but for reasons I gave here: [2], and please accept all these comments as a review. The article is good, but not good enough yet; but it's got lots of potential. The secondary sources are so important, even AS did not realise the impact this book would have on Russian and world history. Khrushchev's approval of the publication of the book backfired on him and he lost his position, (albeit for other related reasons), and the novella was withdrawn from Soviet libraries. The article is missing AS's motive; why did he write the book? Why did he offer it to Tvardovsky's Novy Mir? Did AS realise the danger he was putting himself in? The article answers none of these very important questions. Also, (Tony hates this word), also, AS uses the very strong language, (in the UK we call it swearing), this came as a shock to Tvardovsky, and the Novy Mir readership. All this and much more is missing from the article, and these are some of the many reasons why it is not ready for FA. Graham.--GrahamColm^Talk 00:08, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

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