Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology/1

Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology

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Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology is about a 1985 publication of some collected writings of the major literary figure William Burroughs. It includes a short story, first published in 1971, and other writings and newspaper articles written by Burroughs.

• The article is too wide ranging and does not remain focused. Almost one half of the article is the "Background" section, much of it relating to his views and experiences with Scientology, with references are to biographies of Burroughs. Suggest some of this be merged into the biography article William S. Burroughs, which does not mention this publication.

• The article gives repeated negative information regarding Scientology with no balance. The publication section, which summarizes the individual articles, seems to repeat much of the material in the first section. The article references an anti-Scientology writer, Paulette Cooper and, in general, portrays Scientology in a negative light beyond the need to do so. The article fails to mention that much of the material in the article conflates Scientology with psychiatry, that the articles are as much anti-psychiatry as they are anti-Scientology.

• There is no "Critical evaluation" or "Critical analysis" or "Critical response" section. Since this is a literary work by a major literary figure, this seems to me a critical omission. There is no explanation for publishing short opinion articles together with a short story that nothing to do with Scientology.

I believe these problems with the article can be remedied by treating Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology as a literary work by providing proper context and literary criticism. Also, the excessive repetition of information on Scientology (I do not know whether the information is correct) can be reduced, as the specifics of Scientology is not as important and the qualities of literary style and presentation. More emphasis is needed on a critical view of the work, as would be required for any GA article on a book, film, comic book, video game etc. —Mattisse (Talk) 19:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

<Discussion cut to talk>

To be clear (and as we already explained to Mattisse), we believe there are no more reliable sources to consult and that creating a "Reception" section will be impossible at this point in time. As I pointed out to Mattisse earlier today, the bibliography of Burroughs' works and criticism on Burroughs that I consulted for this article does not list any contemporary reviews of the book. We have therefore relied on literary criticism and Burroughs biographies (which are, of course, better anyway, since they are scholarly). Perhaps in the future scholars will do more work on this book. As of now, we have included the information we found in reliable sources. Awadewit (talk) 19:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

<Discussion cut to talk>

• Comment: I don't know if I am uninvolved enough. I gave a brief comment on the PR for the book, apparently opening this astonishingly quick-growing can of worms. Numerous debates were recently held on the FAC talk page regarding short articles. It seems to me that many of the editors who commented in those debates made the point that GA is for articles that cannot become FA because of their length, or a lack of sources that should cover FA-type depth. I have not checked my library for sources on this topic, but I will do that tomorrow. I think that if Awadewit cannot find such sources they probably do not exist, but I will look for myself as I said I would do on the PR. Awadewit's access to info and mine are very similar. If nothing comes from my search, however, it should be noted that GA criteria simply state that an article should be comprehensive; GA criteria does not focus on specifics for types of articles, such as books, nonfiction or otherwise. --Moni3 (talk) 20:57, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

  Contributions to GAR discussions are welcome from all editors, be they "involved", "uninvolved" or something inbetween. Thanks for commenting, and I hope you will comment further. Geometry guy 20:12, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Agree that GA criteria should not be so strict that it prevents otherwise well written articles from being passed because it is not complete on an absolute scale. Rather for an GA promotion, using all available sources should be enough as long as the article reasonable covers the content. These articles need appropriate recognition as a GA if they are otherwise FA quality work. I'm not commenting on this particular article, but the principle.

• As well, if the issue was still be discussed on the article talk page, then perhaps this GAR is premature. FloNight♥♥♥ 21:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• not a GA Excuse me if I seem to ramble, but I had to think out what principles to apply, because it's hard to categorise the book as described in the article:
  • I'd be inclined to regard this as a book of essays rather than a literary work, since all but one of its parts is a non-fiction essay or article, and the short story is about the same theme as the essays. Does anyone know of any recent FAs of GAs on collections of essays? (promoted mid-2007 or later, because most articles promoted before barely reach B-class now).
  • Since precedents are hard to find, I'll boldy venture my own opinion. An article about any book needs some some 3rd-party commentary in order to get any "seal of approval". In the case of Burrough's opinons about Scientology, there's plenty of background, but nothing about how reasonable they were considered by other commentators, or whether they had any influence on academics', politicians' or the public's perceptions of Scientology. Whether you consider Burrough's essays to be in the realm of politics, philosophy, sociology or whatever, I'd expect coverage of these aspects.
  • The real problem is that the book seems to fall short on WP:NOTABILITY. Cirt, Awadewit and Fainites, who all support this article's GA status, admit the lack of 3rd-party commentary. I did my own searches and all I got from ordinary Google, apart from this article, was a collection of sales pages and library catalogues - I didn't even see a blog post. When I tried Google Scholar, in case there was some academic commentary that didn't have high enough page rank to appear fairly high in the ordinary Google results, I got exactly one hit - the work by Urban, cited in the article - but that's about Scientology, and mentions Burroughs' book only in passing.
  • If 3rd-party commentary can't be found, the article should fail for not meeting WP:WIAGA's requirement of "broad" coverage. --Philcha (talk) 21:55, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

<Discussion cut to talk>

• • • • Pilcha, there is third-party commentary - by William Burroughs scholars. See the article's bibliography. This article more than meets the notability requirements. There is peer-reviewed scholarship on it. Awadewit (talk) 22:00, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
        • (ec)I can't comment on whether there is peer-reviewed scholarship for it, as I'll admit Google is not omniscient, especially for subjects before the rise of the WWW. However the article shows little sign of such peer-reviewed scholarship, except perhaps about the background, e.g. the roots of B's opinions about Scientology. But that's not enough to answer the most important question of all, "Why should anyone care?" Apparently no-one thought the book important enough to agree or even disagree with the opinions it expresses, and it apears to have had no influence - which is a pretty poor showing for a book of what seem to be rather polemical essays. You'll have noticed that my perspective is quite different from that of Mattisse, who treats the book as literature. However I agree with her statement "Not all articles can be a GA". This probably happens to many editors. It's happened twice to me recently. IMO in terms of coverage Next (novel) (I enjoyed it the most of the Crichton books I've read) is better than Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology, but it's far form a GA. Amstrad PCW is about a range of personal computers whose early models were briliant for their time and changed the PC market for ever, but the late models have dropped right off the radar (probably deservedly). I suggest you apply your obvious love of literature to a more worthy subject. --Philcha (talk) 22:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
          • I consider all works by an author like William S. Burroughs to be worth writing about. Of the 11 sources, 9 are peer-reviewed. Considering the essays in the book prompted Scientology to reply, the book obviously did make an impact. Moreover, I was unaware that GA had higher standards than FA. FA requires that a comprehensive search of published material be made. That is what we have done. If GA requires more, that surprises me. Awadewit (talk) 22:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
            • Your comment raises some interesting issues. Re "all works by an author like William S. Burroughs to be worth writing about", I seem to remeber something about notability not being inherited, and I think that applies here - Burroughs is notable, but this particular book apparently isn't.
            • WP:WIAFA requires "comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context". IMO this article fails to place the subject in context, apparently because the real world unkindly provided no context. So it should fail FAC quite thoroughly. GA's trickier, we have the occasional "how broad is broad" discussion at WT:GAN - and then remember why the previous one got nowhere. Mattisse has reviwed tons of articles for GA, and has often been complimented both for her industry and thoroughness (including by other reviewers) and for her helpfulness (by nominators). I've done a few GA reviews, with which people seem to have been pleased, even when I failed articles. If you don't trust our judgement on the issue of coverage, you could ask for further comments at WT:GAN or WT:GAR --Philcha (talk) 23:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
              • • Actually the more relevant FA criterion is 1c "(c) well-researched: it is characterized by a thorough and representative survey of relevant literature on the topic". There has been frequently discussion about the meaning of this at FA. I would like it to mean that an article has to be comprehensive in the way you say, but it does not mean that. FA requires only that an article consult the published literature, not what we wished were published. If FA required what you are saying, most popular culture topics would not be able to be featured, for example. I myself have reviewed numerous GAs and successfully shepherded around 30 articles through GA. I am familiar with its standards. Awadewit (talk) 23:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
                  • Per notability, are you saying that a book written by William S. Burroughs, one of the most famous writers of the 20th century, and referred to in several books of peer-reviewed literary criticism is not notable? By what part of the policy? Awadewit (talk) 23:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
                    • Awadewit, I suspect we could go on forever like this, and possibly drive everyone else into some other activity like trying to reform vandals. If you want to continue, I suggest you open a sub-page somewhere and then drop me a messge. --Philcha (talk) 07:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

<Discussion cut to talk>

Neutral on article for now (need to read it more thoroughly). But i agree with Matisse that some critical reception & impact is essential for all GAs of artistic works. Otherwise there is nothing to stop every minor work that has only production info and plot summary from being GA, because no-one has ever reviewed it. In this case, it seems extremely unlikely that newspapers or lit reviews don't exist, as he is so influential and famous, but if they do not, how is this notable? And even if others disagree, it is a legitimate grounds for a community GAR - it is not as though this were a unilateral delisting.YobMod 08:03, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

There are no contemporary reviews. As I explained above and to Mattisse before she listed this for GAR, I consulted a bibliography of Burroughs' works and criticism on Burroughs. It lists reviews for the works that have them, but lists none for this one. I would like to point out that books are not only notable because they were reviewed at the time they were published. Note that this reception section, in a featured article by Mary Wollstonecraft was written without any reviews. Also, Jane Austen's novel Mansfield Park initially received no reviews (see Reception history of Jane Austen). Are these books not notable? The reason there is more scholarship on them is because these authors have been dead longer. Burroughs scholars have started writing about him and his works, and we have included their views in the Ali's Smile article. I can only imagine that they will publish more over the course of time and the article can be improved once that has happened. Awadewit (talk) 16:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

<See the talk page for further discussion concerning which articles can be GAs>.

• If no info on reception exists, then I think the article can be a GA without it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:48, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

• Procedural comments. <See the talk page for general discussion of the GAR process>. Some practicalities.

• This reassessment is getting long. In the past, it has been helpful to move to the reassessment talk page any discussion which is not directly related to whether the article meets the GA criteria or not. This requires some sensitivity, but it is quite likely that this is needed here. I'm likely to do this, so please let me know if you disagree with my choices.
• Any discussion about the motivation, good faith etc. of this reassessment should take place elsewhere, not here. Geometry guy 22:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I think moving the whole discussion so far to the talk page would be a good idea, inviting contributors to comment on whether this particular article passes or fails the criteria. If it is kept, then maybe a discussion is needed to clarify the criteria. Slipknot demo failed twice for not being sufficiently broad, even though it contained every known piece of info, and its inability to ever become GA was endorsed by some during its Topic nomination (which happens quite often), but opposed by others. If consensus says GAs cannot be failed in such situations, then the criteria need to say so, and all such articles need to be looked at again.YobMod 07:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I've now made some cuts to talk. I think cutting the whole discussion would throw out the baby too, so I've trimmed, leaving links. If anyone has any problems with this, please start a new section on the talk page. Geometry guy 20:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's quite so absolute is it? As in can never be failed, must always be failed. If there is very little sourced information at all then an article may never become a GA. However, if there is good sourced information on many aspects, should it automatically fail because there is no information on one particular aspect where, if there was information it would be included? On the latter, from my reading of GG's contribution, the answer is no. There must be a borderline somewhere but no doubt the edges are fuzzy.Fainites ^barleyscribs 07:42, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

As Fainites says, the edges are fuzzy. AFAIK the most recent relevant discussions at WT:GAN have been about a California law that is being challenged in the courts, Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics and a book to be released Nov 2009. In these cases there are issues about both stability and gaps in coverage, but they all have fairly easily identifiable future end-points. The future is less predictable for Burrough's book, but Awadewit anticipates that commentary will gradually emerge (above, at 16:49, 6 May 2009). I'm less confident of that as: this collection of B's articles was published 1973; I'm a lot more familiar with with evolution-related topics than with literay or Scientology related topics (understatement!), but I notice that in evolution The Panda's Thumb (book), a collection of previously-published essays by Stephen Jay Gould, got some commentary pretty quickly and I bet I could find more, especially if I searched on the individual essays. How's that for a hint! -Philcha (talk) 10:04, 7 May 2009 (UTC).

Well, I am familiar with literary topics (as I am a graduate student in English literature) and it is extremely common for scholarship to emerge on an author decades or even centuries after their death. For example, thirty years after the publication of Jane Austen's novels, there was virtually no scholarship on her works, but now there are thousands of books and every single one of her works, down to the stories she wrote as a child, has been analyzed. The same is true for Mary Wollstonecraft - it wasn't until over 100 years after the publication of her works that scholarship began to be done on them (now, even her hack work, like Thoughts on the Education of Daughters has been studied). Ditto for Mary Shelley. The list is rather long. In fact, almost all of the writers I've written biographies for on Wikipedia were not seriously studied until many decades after their death - most were not seriously studied for 150 years. That we already have serious literary criticism on Burroughs is a sure sign that more is to come. Awadewit (talk) 12:34, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure there will be further lit crit of Burroughs' work. However I'm not sure Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology will be regarded as literature, since most of it is non-fiction essays on Scientology, published at various times in various periodicals. As I said earlier, the only Google Scholar hit I got for Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology was Urban's work, which is about Scientology and only mentions Ali's Smile: Naked Scientologyas an aside. You might do better to look for commentarty on the individual essays in the collection. --Philcha (talk) 15:50, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

We have already done that kind of research. On your other points, non-fiction essays are considered literature. For example, there is even scholarship on Mary Wollstonecraft's book reviews for the Analytical Review. The same is true for lots of authors. Literature is not just fiction. Awadewit (talk) 16:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• Delist per criteria 3a and 3b. The article tells of the existence of the book, but does not put it into context of Burrough's oeuvre or give us sufficient critical response to make an informed judgement - the general reader would be left feeling somewhat unsatisfied, as such it not does not address one of the main aspects of the topic. The background section is rather long and detailed, and I don't see the direct relation between the first paragraph of that section and the topic of the article. There is a feel of WP:SYNTHESIS about the section, as material is being discussed to advance a position about the background to the book, and we are not given a reliable source which sums up the overview being created. So it is likely that the article doesn't meet criteria 2c. I feel that overall it's a decent article tackling a difficult topic, and it is the nature of the topic that is causing a problem rather than any failing in the editors. SilkTork *^YES! 18:56, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• The first and second paragraphs place the work within Burroughs' oeuvre, specifically listing his other works. They describe his basic style and how he drew his most famous style, the cut-up, from the theories of Dianetics. I'm not sure how much more could be done here without going off topic. Awadewit (talk) 19:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
• "we are not given a reliable source which sums up the overview being created" - If you wish for an overview of Burroughs as a writer, see the Dictionary of Literary Biography entry we cite and if you wish for an overview of Burroughs as a person and a writer, see the two biographies we also cite: Morgan and Miles. Awadewit (talk) 19:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• Question. Awadewit commented above that "Considering the essays in the book prompted Scientology to reply, the book obviously did make an impact". Is she referring to the letter from Sorrell (which appears in the compilation) or to some other response? If the latter, what other responses have there been from Scientology? Thanks, Geometry guy 21:41, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, that is what I was referring to. I have also wondered why precisely Burroughs was "expelled" by Scientology and labeled as being in a "Condition of Treason" (I thought there might be a connection to his publication of these articles), but I don't know of any reliable sources that substantiate that connection. Awadewit (talk) 21:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

  Yes it would be good to know that. Anyway, the problem remains that this only shows that the book review of "Inside Scientology" made an impact. It says nothing about the original "Ali's Smile" short story nor the rest of the compilation. Might the article better be renamed, given that some of the components appear to be more notable than the compilation of them? Geometry guy 22:16, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

  The sources I found generally refer to the compilation, though. Even the Dictionary of Literary Biography entry, which doesn't list all of Burroughs' works, lists this book. Awadewit (talk) 22:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep. The article is well-written and comprehensive, and incorporates all available WP:RS/WP:V secondary sources on the subject. Cirt (talk) 00:54, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Am I allowed to register a view as the reviewer do you think?Fainites ^barleyscribs 18:40, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it would be helpful to know your view on the current state of the article's quality and whether it should be kept as a WP:GA. Cirt (talk) 18:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you are allowed, Fainites. Note that step 3 of the GAR process is "It is also courteous to notify the most recent GA reviewer" - to me, that is inviting participation by the reviewer. Awadewit (talk) 18:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, your comments would be most welcome, Fainites. Pretty much any editor can contribute to a GAR, as it is not a vote. Geometry guy 19:39, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

• Keep A/ There are no prescriptive lists for sections for a GA. It does not follow that because there were no critical reviews and hence no critical review section, it must fail. B/ Burroughs is highly notable. An article on a book by him shedding light on his long term involvement with and partial disillusionment with scientology can hardly fail to be notable. The reviews of this book at the time were literary and scholarly rather than critical. How can this possibly make it not notable? C/ I do not agree with suggestions that it does not place the book within Burroughs oeuvre. D/ I do not agree that the parts about his time with scientology are off topic. They are essential to an understanding of the book. E/ Articles should not be delisted because the impossible is being asked for. The fact that the impossible is not obtainable does not make GA unobtainable. Fainites ^barleyscribs 21:11, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. The book is very short and can be read in less than an hour online; I suggest editors do so before commenting. I agree with Mattisse that the background section goes on for too long relative to the part that is actually about the book. Parts of the background, like the paragraph about cut-ups (a concept which many readers may not be familiar with), seem extraneous to a discussion of the book, which does not mention cut-ups.
• Coming to the summary of the book proper, in the first essay, Burroughs quotes Scientology's criticism of psychiatry at length. Around a third of this essay is a long quote on psychiatrists and their views lifted from a Scientology magazine. Burroughs then proceeds to supply a critique of this criticism, which he feels has fascist overtones, and criticises Hubbard for holding Scientology teachings "under wraps" for financial gain, rather than making them openly accessible to the world, to be investigated and evaluated by other "astronauts of inner space". Our summary of that essay says nothing about all of that, quoting instead a soundbite from an anti-Scientology source which this article could as well do without.
• Our summary of the second essay, while quoting from a press article reproduced in the book, makes me slightly uneasy. If the phrase "started a controversy going by publishing an attack on the psychiatry profession and related fields such as Scientology" refers to the first essay, as I believe it surely does (Burroughs refers explicitly to the Scientology journal he quoted at length in the March essay), then it should be noted that in the first essay Burroughs did not so much "publish an attack on the psychiatry profession" as quote such an attack, in order to then counter and critique it. Not necessarily because he likes psychiatrists and would like to defend them against the attack – he said in that first essay that he sees good and bad in psychiatrists – but because he queries the moral credentials of the attackers (the Scientologists). The "April 1970" reference would seem to be OR, and wrong – it seems to be based on back-calculating the "three months" from the July publication date of the second essay, but as we know, the first essay was published in March 1970, not in April. In the second essay Burroughs describes Scientologists as essentially bourgeois, supporting big business rather than the revolutionary left. I guess that comes across vaguely in our summary.
• In the third essay, Burroughs describes various personal experiences of being audited, some hilarious, others poignant, some triggering in him vivid recollections of events -- he hesitates to ascribe them to past lives -- which he says provided useful source material for his writing. While we have room for his praise of Mr Kaufmann's decision to publish the exposé, we have not made room for what the essay is actually about. I think this reflects Mattisse's concerns that we seem to be describing the book in the context of the "war against Scientology", rather than describing the book as a book.
• In the fourth essay, Burroughs responds to various points by a Church of Scientology official. While this sort of material is difficult to summarise, I think we could do better than just providing links to our articles on the topics these points were about, without saying anything about what was disputed between Sorrell and Burroughs. At any rate, we devote more lines to Sorrell's cover letter, which is half a page, than to Burroughs response to Sorrell's points, which runs to nearly 6 pages.
• The short story that concludes the book is quite entertaining; our summary of it is a little lacklustre. The sound file with Burroughs' voice is a nice thing to have, but the way it has been cut, neatly ending with "why, I paid for his Scientology courses", strikes me as manipulative and makes the story appear like something which it isn't. The story is not a morality tale about the high prices Scientology charges. As our summary indicates, it is a supernatural and surreal story about Malayan magic that makes people run amok. (Note that it is a Malayan dagger, not a Mayan dagger.)
• Grammar issues: "cut-ups and Scientology allowed both he and his readers to redefine words" should be "cut-ups and Scientology allowed both him and his readers to redefine words"; "Scientology, along with cut-ups, silence, and apomorphine, allow the characters to resist social control" should be "Scientology, along with cut-ups, silence, and apomorphine, allows the characters to resist social control".
• Spelling issues: article uses mixture of UK and US spelling: organisation/organization etc. Jayen466 22:28, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It appears Jayen466 (talk · contribs) would ask the Wikipedian to perform original research violations in order to interpret and analyze the material of the book, in the Wikipedia article about it, while neglecting secondary sources. Also, in Jayen466 (talk · contribs)'s comments, above, he neglected to acknowledge that what he calls "spelling issues" are in fact spelling within quoted text, and what he calls "grammar issues" are actually proper tense uniformity within the subsection. Cirt (talk) 23:12, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

The present article contains a number of content summaries cited to the book itself, so it is not as though the article had eschewed primary source summaries. As for variant spellings in quoted text, I am not sure how we handle this usually; thanks for pointing it out. The grammar issues I mentioned have nothing to do with tense; one is about case, the other about numerus; both are minor issues. Lastly, if a secondary source is clearly wrong -- e.g. Mayan/Malayan -- I think the article is better if we correct rather than perpetuate the mistake. Jayen466 00:36, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, we very careful to avoid content summaries. We quote two opening sentences, list the topics covered in Burroughs' response to Sorrell, describe Sorrell's letter in a single sentence and quote from it once. That is the extent of the "content summaries" quoted to the book itself. Awadewit (talk) 01:09, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Responses to Jayen

• Parts of the background, like the paragraph about cut-ups (a concept which many readers may not be familiar with), seem extraneous to a discussion of the book, which does not mention cut-ups. - Removing this information will create a POV article, as it will eliminate much of what Burroughs thought was positive about Scientology. Moreover, it is unlikely that Burroughs would mention cut-ups in his writing, as it is style. Writers do not usually announce "I am writing in this style." Awadewit (talk) 01:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• The sound file with Burroughs' voice is a nice thing to have, but the way it has been cut, neatly ending with "why, I paid for his Scientology courses", strikes me as manipulative and makes the story appear like something which it isn't. - The file is as short as it is to comply with fair use restrictions. It must be less than 10% of the entire length of the original file. I thought it would be best to start from the beginning of the story than to throw readers into the midst of the story. Awadewit (talk) 01:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
• Jayen seems to want us to summarize the work ourselves. I am very reluctant to do this. Many of the pieces written by Burroughs are extremely disjointed and therefore very difficult to summarize. Any summary would, in my opinion, reflect the interests of the reader. I therefore thought it best to rely on secondary sources. Awadewit (talk) 01:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Responding to your points, the book consists mostly of essays that were printed in news media. They are not written in cut-up style. Perhaps Mattisse is right and this part of the background had better be used in the Burroughs biography.
• I take your point about the sound file, but perhaps another sentence or two wouldn't go amiss, so we have a mention of the kris and Ali, arguably the main elements of the story.
• The essays are not particularly disjointed, being news media articles published for general consumption. I am not usually in favour of primary source summaries either, but if you look at the refs currently cited, the summaries of the essays are already a Wikipedian's summary of the primary source.
• The summary for the short story contains a clear error (Mayan/Malayan) and is a bit lacklustre. There is a slightly longer discussion of the story in William Burroughs and the secret of fascination, by Oliver C. G. Harris (pp. 29–30), focusing on the smile of the title:

  Is fascination infectious, and are those who study it unable to escape its hex? It is surely no coincidence that there is only one case of the smile in Burroughs' fiction prominent enough to have attracted critical attention, which is the dreamy and deadly smile that reproduces itself like a disease in The Wild Boys (1971). As Jennie Skerl observes, “the image of a smiling boy becomes a popular icon that subverts the social order by recruiting more wild boys” (83). While this entire text is, in fact, structured from first to last by images of the enigmatic smile, the defining instance occurs in a short story, written at the same time as The Wild Boys, entitled “Ali's Smile.” Here, the smile is firmly tied to homosexual desire and compulsory mimesis, so that fascination names a perverse pleasure or pleasurable perversity: Ali loses control of his own body by becoming, for a crowd of mocking women, “a Latah, that is a condition where the victim must imitate every movement”; then he exacts revenge by running Amok, a state of lethal possession; finally, Ali is transformed into the haunting image that ends the story with an enigmatic ellipsis: “Against the icy blackness of space, the ghost face of Ali ... smiles” (Exterminator! 75, 84). Murphy's comment in relation to the murderous wild boys, that “they smile in invitation to the reader” (Wising Up 167), captures nicely the threat they pose within and beyond their Book of the Dead: mimetic smiles, fatally so. 8

• Harris' summary does not mention the Scientological subplot at all. Jayen466 19:58, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Precis of content is not original research, as any reader can verify what we say from the primary source. That doesn't mean it is easy to provide a balanced precis. However, it being difficult is no excuse for omission. The concern that a precis may be one reader's interpretation is easily countered by the fact that this is a wiki. The wiki process can be used to reach a consensus on a balanced summary. I strongly encourage Awadewit, Cirt and Jayen466 (who are all excellent editors) and others, to work together to achieve such consensus. Geometry guy 21:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. I read the online version, and the article fails to cover the book adequately. I believe the conflict which led to this GAR was initiated by a misunderstanding: in the first article of the book, there is an extensive critique of psychiatrists. However, this critique is a quotation of Scientology material, not Burrough's own words, and Mattisse is clearly not the first person to be confused by this. The article promotes this misunderstanding by quoting the introduction to the second article: "an attack on the psychiatry profession and related fields such as Scientology". Burrough is not supportive of psychiatry, but he isn't vehemently against it either. At the moment the article leads all readers into the same misunderstanding. As such it should not be a GA. Geometry guy 21:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I removed this particular bit [1], however it should be noted this was itself confusing due to the wording in the source, The East Village Other. Cirt (talk) 22:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Update: I have removed The Scandal of Scientology by Paulette Cooper as a source from the article [2]. Cirt (talk) 22:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)