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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 Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 20:54, 25 July 2017 [1].

Starship Troopers

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Nominator(s): Vanamonde (talk) 17:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a hugely popular, hugely influential, and hugely controversial science fiction novel from 1959. It has been through a GA review, and has also had its reception section looked over by Mike Christie, who knows what's what with science-fiction. Since then I've been over the prose again, and have added more views from commentators to the article. Between the large number of sci-fi authors and scholars, I believe I have covered every significant theme among reliable sources. I think I am also supposed to disclose that I am a Wikicup participant. Have at it. Vanamonde (talk) 17:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Riley

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This will probably be a quick review. Anyways, here goes:

  • In the sentence "The novel explores the theme of coming-of-age, and also critiques U.S. society of the 1950s, arguing that a lack of discipline had led to a moral decline, and advocating corporal and capital punishment", who is doing the "advocating"?
    The novel itself/Heinlein. "The novel explores....arguing that...and advocating..." How may I clarify this?
Removing the comma would certainly help, as one could interpret it as "The novel explores...critiques U.S. society of the 1950s...and advocating..." But, I guess that still means that the novel would apply to advocating. Regardless, it is a bit confusing when first reading. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 12:50, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've tweaked the wording: does this help?
  • Citations in the lead? Is there any reason for this?
    In dealing with controversial material (which I do a lot of) I find it generally helpful to have lead citations, where these may be found for the summary style statements that the lead generally contains. Otherwise, you spend a very substantial amount of time reinstating content that drive-by editors have removed saying "unsourced," or removing cn tags for that material.
Sounds good, but in that case, could you reduce the number of citations to one each and only for the controversial stuff? Trust me, nobody will add any cn tags more than that—and if they do, you just revert them and explain why. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 12:53, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My experience says otherwise, but okay. I've trimmed the refs.
  • Some stuff needs to be fixed per MOS:LQ. For example, "Ken MacLeodstated that 'the political strand in [science fiction] can be described as a dialogue with Heinlein.'" to "Ken MacLeodstated that 'the political strand in [science fiction] can be described as a dialogue with Heinlein'."
    I'm not certain about this: MOS:LQ, and what I remember of high-school grammar, says that if the punctuation was part of the quote, then it should be included within the quotation marks. As far as I can tell, I have adhered to this: MacLeod is ending his sentence there, for instance.
Oh, well I'm a true idiot. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 12:42, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And that is all for now. Maybe I will comment more, I don't know. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 21:05, 28 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@RileyBugz: I've responded to your points. Vanamonde (talk) 06:33, 29 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@RileyBugz: I've responded, FYI. Vanamonde (talk) 06:13, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Nikkimaria

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Comment I'm mostly looking at images (see below), but I wanted to flag for your attention MOS issues (eg. WP:NOTUSA), inconsistencies in citation formatting (eg. some works are italicized and others not), and Wikipedia:Review_aggregators#Limitations. These should be addressed before the article is promoted. Also, at the time this work was first published the ISBN system did not exist - typically in these cases one wouldn't be included in the infobox. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:37, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Nikkimaria: I have addressed most of your issues. I will double check the italicization issues, but honestly I've used the citation templates in every case without introducing extra italicization of my own, so not sure what I can do here...Vanamonde (talk) 09:50, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Comments by Wehwalt

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I've read the book, I have the book, I've seen the movie, I have opinions. A few comments:

Wehwalt, good to see you here. I was hoping to have you review this. I'll do my best with your suggestions.
  • "It is one of the only Heinlein novels which intersperses his typical linear narrative structure with a series of flashbacks." I would say "few", not "only".
  • Done.
  • "Rico is depicted as a man of Filipino ancestry, although there has been disagreement on this matter among fans." It might be worth noting this is not made clear until the end of the novel.
  • Hmm. I'm not too happy doing this, because there aren't any sources that mention this...d'you think the novel is enough of a source?
I wouldn't use the novel as a source to say something that would effectively require reading the book to prove. So I'll drop this.
  • "Carmencita Ibanez" My edition of the book has the last name as Ibañez. Also, Rico refers to her as "Carmen" when he re-encounters her during OCS, making it likely that "Carmencita" is a childhood nickname.
  • Folks don't seem to be clear on this, do they? The novel uses "Carmencita" four times and "Carmen" 12 times, but never in a context that would make it absolutely clear which is the nickname...indeed from the first use, it seems as though "carmen" may have been intended as the nickname. Based on common sense, though, I've gone along with your suggestion.
  • "The letter Rico receives from Dubois, partly responsible for Rico "crossing the hump" with his training, is shown as a turning point in his development.[19] This is especially true of the parts of his training that involve indoctrination," The "This" that starts the second sentence is a bit unclear. Are they meant to be turning points? I don't think they are all turning points. It was only in the incident with the Dubois letter that Rico rejects a course of action to leave the military. They do help Rico understand the moral framework that underlies his society and why when told he should go out and shoot bugs, he should go out and shoot bugs.
  • I think this was a case of a sentence being unintentionally moved by later additions. I've reorganized it a little. Does it read better now?
  • "Rico, who does poorly in school," when he meets Mr. Weiss, the placement officer, Rico's pleased by Weiss having his high school transcript, "I had stood high enough without standing so high as to be marked as a greasy grind". He's also slated for Harvard Business School.
  • I guess you're right about that part, it struck me as odd, too. The trouble is this is the Magill source speaking. I've removed that phrase at the moment, let me know if it does not read well.
  • "The novel is also highly controversial. Heinlein scholar James Gifford called it one of the most controversial science fiction books ever published.[4][3]" refs in wrong order. Also "Starship Troopers has been acknowledged as one of the best known and most influential works of science fiction.[10][2][21]" and "Heinlein's discussions of his political beliefs were criticized as being "didactic",[78][11][79] " and probably more given how many reference chains you use.
  • Thanks for pointing that out. It's a consequence, I think, of significant revisions being made to the text. I used search for the string "][", so I should have got them all.
  • The section marked Reception says almost nothing about how it was reviewed in 1959.
  • That's not quite true: I use a number of views expressed in the PITFCS debate, which are from the period 1959 to 1961. The earliest in this article is, I think, from February 1960; between two and three months after the publication of the full-length book in December 1959.
  • Drop in a few more dates then. What about the regular SF magazines, did they review it?
  • I'd added a few per your comment below; I've added a few more now. I'm sure the mainstream SF magazines did review it, but that material has generally been swamped by the flood from high-profile authors and scholarly sources. Nonetheless, there are some in here; the "Ten books of 1959" comes from Damon Knight in F&SF; and Anthony Boucher founded the Magazine of SF, though his review is not from there. If you think it a problem, I'll try to find more; though the reception section's pretty beefy already.
  • "A review in The Herald Tribune " probably the full name of the newspaper should be given.
  • Done.
  • "Panshin, a veteran of the peacetime military, argued that Heinlein glossed over the reality of military life, and that the Terran Federation-Arachnid conflict existed simply because, "Starship troopers are not half so glorious sitting on their butts polishing their weapons for the tenth time for lack of anything else to do."[83] Some of Rico's dialogue in the novel suggests that the novel is contemptuous of a government without an active military.[84]" Doesn't Rico Sr. make clear in the "trip to Mars" conversation that the Terran Federation has never fought a war? Do the sources consider that?
  • I think Rico senior says that the TF has not fought a war for a while. In general, though, even the sources that are broadly supportive of Heinlein do not appear to mention that fact.
  • "Suvin called it an example of agitprop in favor of military values," this seems an unsourced fragment.
  • Neglected to duplicate the ref.
  • I haven't read through the entire article yet, but I'm surprised not to see discussion of the symbolism of the fact that Johnny is named "Rico".
  • This isn't in any of the sources that I have seen; what are you referring to?
  • Rico means "Rich" in Spanish, and he was rich (likely still is).
  • Yeah that's beyond my Spanish abilities (not more than 50 words). I've looked, though, and I cannot find sources which mention this; the only one I've found so far is a reading guide from the St. Louis public library.
  • Well, never mind then. Pretty sure I've read that somewhere though. I read through whatever analyses of Heinlein my university library had in the 1980s, so it may be an outdated view.
  • You don't very often use dates to say when the commentary on the book occurred. You're closer to the sources than I am, but I have the sense that there's more hostility to the novel today than in Heinlein's lifetime, but it's hard to separate out when these things were said, especially since it's sometimes sort of hidden behind "commentators say" or the like.
  • Fair point. I've added dates in a few more places.
  • More's always welcome :)
  • You sort of dance around the point, but in the Race/gender section, I would more clearly state that the Mobile Infantry is entirely male.
  • Done.
  • "Though Rico says he finds women "marvelous", he shows no desire for sexual activity; the war seems to have subsumed sex in this respect." This is 1959, and Stranger hadn't happened yet. There wasn't much sex in SF in 1959.
  • Huh, that's a point that had escaped me. The Magill source is quite insistent about it, though...
  • Well, so be it then.
  • "Despite the gestures towards women's equality, women are still objects, to be protected, and to fight wars over." This is very opiniony, and it's terribly broad (no pun intended) to be based on a 1979 book.
  • I've added in-text attribution. Let me know if that is enough, or whether you'd rather I removed it altogether.
  • " compares the battle room in Ender's Game to Heinlein's prosthetic suits" This isn't terribly clear. It's likely not the battle room itself, but the uniforms worn by the child-soldiers that can "freeze" them if hit by the "weapons".
  • Actually this is the battle room itself; Hantke makes that quite clear. "The Battle Room appears to be, for now, the last incarnation of the combat prosthesis whose development I have been tracing from Starship Troopers on." There's a lot more of this, a page or more. If this is rather too highbrow for Wikipedia (I'm not sure I understand it myself...) I could just remove that bit.
  • No, I'd let it stand.
  • "dedicates his efforts to protection his erstwhile enemies" possibly "devotes his efforts to protect his onetime enemies. I would also pipe somewhere to Ender Wiggin. If the source mentions that both enemies are insectoid (after all, "buggers"?), that is worth including. I'm not sure the word "enemies" is the right word given Ender doesn't know he's fighting real beings and from what I recall, the Hive Queen makes it clear that the Buggers did not hate Ender.
  • I've added the link, and used "targets" in place of "enemies".
  • The last three subsections of the article are in the form of bulleted lists. I would say you should stay with straight prose.
  • alright.
  • I would make clearer that Uchū no Senshi was based on Starship Troopers.
  • Added a little.
  • The second in that bulleted list is unsourced.
  • It hasn't really received too much attention in mainstream sources. I've added sources for now, but I'd like your opinion on whether axing that bullet altogether isn't the best option.
  • Feel free. I don't consider game adaptions etc 100 percent necessary to the article.
  • Removed. Given that the last three sub-sections of adaptations are now quite short, I'm wondering if it would make more sense to bring them together into an "Other media" section.
  • Combined.
  • The reference in the bulleted list to Starship Troopers: Invasion is introduced, including link, as if it had not been mentioned before when in fact it is mentioned a couple of paragraphs before. I would straighten this out.
  • Done.
  • You are not consistent on whether you italicize the names of games.
  • Fixed.
Second read. I'm doing some hands-on editing.
  • "Rico enters Officer Candidate School for a second course of training, including further courses in "History and Moral Philosophy"." This might mistakenly imply to the reader that Rico had History and Moral Philosophy during his first course of training, since you haven't mentioned the course yet.
  • I've added a mention earlier, with Dubois' letter
  • You mention that Heinlein wrote 13 Scribner's juveniles. The box at the foot of the article lists only twelve. Possibly Podkayne, but that was later and not Scribner's.
  • Hmm. I hadn't counted, I'd just gone off of Gifford; so I've just gone with "several", because saying 12 and citing 13 is dodgy.
  • "His training, both at boot camp and at officer candidate school," I'm minded to say that since you capitalize Officer Candidate School in the plot summary you should do so here, but I can see it either way since a plot summary is a bit different from the rest of the article.
  • Well in my head this was the generic, as with boot camp, but I too can see it both ways..
  • "German soldiers in the First World War." I'd go with "World War I" here since it is the more usual American style.
  • Done.
  • "Heinlein's young protagonists attain manhood by confronting a hostile "wilderness" in space." Very true, but you should make it clear that you're not just talking about Starship Troopers here.
  • Tweaked.
  • "The concept of the American frontier is also related to the coming-of-age theme. Heinlein's young protagonists attain manhood by confronting a hostile "wilderness" in space. Coming-of-age in a military, alien context is a common theme in Heinlein's earlier works as well.[66] Rico's coming of age has also been described as being related to his relationship with his father;" these hyphens can be tricky but the second and third are both nouns. Shouldn't they be hyphenated the same? (or you could replace the "Rico's coming of age" with "Rico's journey to maturity" or similar, which would spare the phrase from too much wear on the tires.
  • I've gone with the hyphens, since I've used journey later in the sentence.
  • "Rico's history teacher" I would spell out History and Moral Philosophy.
  • Done.
  • She went on to argue "Heinlein was absolutely at his peak when he wrote this in 1959. He had so much technical stylistic mastery of the craft of writing science fiction that he could [tell the story "backwards and in high heels"] and get away with it."[18] I don't quite see what you're doing here. First, single bracket words convey to me you're supplying words needed to convey a quote's meaning. This seems to be far more than that and include even a quote (which, in allusion to Hchc's comment below, should properly be in single quotes :)
  • Yeah that's just an unintentional error on my part: [tell the story] is all that should have been in square brackets.
  • "and that only retired veterans could vote or hold office" Is it necessary to say this? It's not contradicted by the critics, and Rico says (the musings after his conversation with Ace about going career) "as long as you were still in uniform you weren't entitled to vote". (p. 127 of my hardcover)
  • You're right, not needed.
  • "There has been disagreement among commentators over whether the "Federal Service" required in the book is service in the military and its support systems, or work in any government service. Though Heinlein himself has stated the latter is true, most analyses of the text have supported the former position.[4]" Isn't this effectively a duplicate of what is stated (likely better) under Allegations of Fascism? I think you should consider merging the two one place or the other (or simply cut this).
  • Fair enough: I've cut it. You're right, it's rather repetitive. I've also moved the remainder of the paragraph up a bit.
Hope to finish later today. Don't take the length of this review as reflective. You've done a fine job here.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:51, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "with both protagonists initially bent on destroying insect-like aliens" I don't think that's true of Ender who thinks that if he is to fight in the war, it will be many years in the future, meantime Dragon Army needs to win its next battle. I might phrase it in terms of humanity being at war against the insectoids. I'd use "against" rather than "with", considering what develops concerning the Buggers.
  • True. Done.
That's it.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:03, 10 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Wehwalt: Many thanks, as always. I've addressed all your comments, I believe. If you have the time, would you mind taking a look at Ealdgyth's source comments below? I got the impression she wanted more eyes on it. Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 05:50, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very well done on a difficult subject.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:37, 11 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review from Ealdgyth

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  • The url is simply a hosting site. The author is described by the Heinlein society as among the first Heinlein scholars. His work on Heinlein, including this particular analysis, has been cited by other scholarly sources: see [2], [3]. Potentially a little close to the Heinlein society, which is why I have tried to limit its use to cases where it does not seem to be promoting the author.
  • Yeah, same guy. Alexei Panshin. Writer, science fiction critic, influential enough to have been cited frequently. The book in question has 63 citations on google scholar, which is probably under counting a bit. Not sure why those were not sfn citations, though. Fixed that.
  • It's an online news portal for science-related topics, including science fiction; analogous, for instance, to Salon. It's not critical to the article, though, so if you'd rather I removed it, I will do so.
  • Just for the record, this has been removed following Ian Rose's comments below.
  • It's an interview with Steakley; therefore, for Steakley's own opinion, it's a reliable source. Steakley himself is a Sci-Fi author, whose work is notable enough to have an article; therefore, if he says in an interview that it was directly influenced by Starship Troopers, that seems worth including.
  • I randomly googled three sentences and nothing showed up except mirrors. Earwig's tool shows no copyright violations.
Otherwise everything looks good. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:31, 7 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ealdgyth: Many thanks for the review. I have addressed your comments. Vanamonde (talk) 08:30, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'll leave these out for other reviewers to consider. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:58, 8 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Hchc2009

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  • Nice work. Some minor points below...
  • Some inconsistency in the use of single and double speechmarks, e.g. "Mico commands a platoon during 'Operation Royalty': a raid to capture members of the Arachnid' 'brain caste' and 'queens'", but "serving with the platoon known as "Rasczak's Roughnecks"."
  • Thanks for pointing this out: I've always been a bit doubtful about quotation styles. I believe I have fixed the inconsistancy.
  • I'd normally expect quotes to be given in-line attribution, which doesn't always happen, e.g. "the discussion of political views is a recurring feature of the "ideologically intense" book" - this doesn't explain who actually said the line. In contrast, see "In a 2009 retrospective, Jo Walton wrote that Starship Troopers was "military SF done extremely well."" Hchc2009 (talk) 08:15, 9 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I used a quote without the author's name, instead choosing to cite at the end of that sentence fragment, just to break up the style a bit; otherwise, we have a lot of "he said, she said" going on. If you think it's an issue, I can use in-text attribution in this case as well.

Comments Support from Casliber

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  • Comments a nice read. Only quibble is para 2 of Reception section. First sentence is redundant - as "controversial/y" is mentioned 3 times in 3 sentences. Some of the analysis strikes me at first impression as slightly repetitive but on looking again I can't find any bits specifically repeated so not actionable. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:48, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Ian

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Recusing from coord duties -- FWIW I've read this, and Haldeman's The Forever War, and seen the Paul Verhoeven film, and like them all for different reasons... ;-)

  • Copyedited so pls let me know if I misinterpreted anything or simply if you disagree with my wording -- for the most part I found the prose very engaging. Some outstanding points:
    • Thanks: I've looked over all of your changes, and I don't take issue with any of them.
    • The manuscript was rejected, prompting Heinlein to cease writing juvenile fiction for Scribner, end his association with the publisher completely, and resume writing books with adult themes. -- if he ended his association with the publisher completely, isn't it redundant to say he stopped writing juvenile fiction for them?
      • You're right. I've removed that fragment.
    • In Setting, I think you need to briefly describe what the Skinnies are like -- the uninitiated reader gets an idea of what the Bugs are like, but doesn't really get a feel for the Skinnies.
      • I'd disagree with you there, actually; the Skinnies play such a trivial role in the whole story. The reviewers mostly ignore them, or mention them in passing; they are only "on screen" in the first chapter of the novel; the movie leaves them out; etc etc. If this were not enough, I've have to use the novel itself for any material I add; there just isn't substance about them in the reviews.
    • the discussion of political views is a recurring feature of the "ideologically intense" book, which has been categorized as a "philosophical novel" -- I think it's generally best to attribute inline quotes, even if only phrases; who describes it as "ideologically intense" and a "philosophical novel"?
      • I resisted this above, but if two reviewers are saying something I better take it seriously :) I've added in text attribution in a couple of places, and paraphrased the quotation in another. I'd really not do it for the "overzealous" because it would really disrupt the text; but if you insist, I could remove that descriptor altogether.
        • I'd probably let it ride if there was only one citation for that sentence but with two it seems to muddy the waters even more -- I don't think it'd hurt too much to lose that descriptor and leave the rest of the sentence as is... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:11, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
          • Okay, removed.
    • Again, who exactly describes praise of the military and approval of violence as "overzealous" or suggested that Heinlein is a "fanatical warmongering fascist"? I think we should also know, without having to investigate the sources, who (or what publication) considers the book "highly readable" and as having "exciting military episodes".
      • See above.
  • I don't write book articles myself but the structure seems fine, as does the level of detail.
  • Re. tone, the novel is certainly one of the most controversial in all sf, and a good deal of material on this is included, but I really didn't come away with a particular feeling for where the editor's sympathies might lie, which is as it should be.

That's it for now -- I may take another pass and post other comments if they come to mind, but essentially I think this is good work on a tough subject. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:00, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Okay, just looking over the source review above, I'm pretty happy with the rationales provided for using most of the sources questioned, the only one that wasn't true for is Peterson -- the article is an interesting take on the book, so in a way I'd be sorry to see it go, but unless I missed something it just doesn't seem clearly to be of the same standard as the others. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:11, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ian Rose: Fair enough. As you said some of the points raised were interesting, which is why I'd included it, but I knew it was borderline. I've just removed all uses; if you think anything else needs to be beefed up to compensate, let me know. Vanamonde (talk) 16:12, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Hawkeye7

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I've read the book too. I believe that the article as it stands is ready for Featured Article Status. I made one small change, switching a link on Eisenhower's nuclear test moratorium to the sub-article that explains the subject. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:01, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Sarastro1: I've rather unexpectedly accumulated 5 supports rather sooner than I could have hoped for. Source and image reviews have also been completed, and I don't think there's any unresolved comments; so would you mind taking a look at this? Regards, Vanamonde (talk) 17:48, 25 July 2017 (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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