Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Imagination (magazine)

Imagination (magazine)

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An 1950s US science fiction magazine. The most similar existing FAs are Beyond Fantasy Fiction and Fantastic Universe, both of which are US magazines, and Authentic Science Fiction, a British sf magazine of the same era. Thanks for all comments. Mike Christie (talk) 20:50, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I have absolutely no knowledge of sci-fi magazines whatsoever, so I probably won't voice a support or an oppose. However, it seems to me that this article should use the {{Infobox Magazine}} in the lead. --Brandt Luke Zorn (talk) 01:37, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose Only 17kB, not comprehensive. No infobox, no external links section, no section about the writing and publishing of the magazine. Needs a copyedit. Improve the article and try GA first. --Kaypoh (talk) 02:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• Infoboxes are not required for FAs or any articles; external links are ideally minimized and the lack of external links is not a detriment (see WP:EL, WP:NOT); there is no minimum size requirement for a featured article; and saying an article is not comprehensive or needs copyediting without providing examples isn't an actionable oppose. The criteria for FAs can be found at WP:WIAFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:21, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added an infobox; I don't particularly like them myself, but am happy to bow to majority opinion here. There was an external links section, but I deleted it since every link in it was absorbed into the references section. I don't see a need to break it out again as that would just duplicate the links. Is there a particular site you think should be linked? With regard to writing and publishing, can you be more specific? It seems to me that there's a good deal of information about how the magazine came to be published. What are you looking for, exactly? And for writing, I'm not sure what is missing: there's information about the content of the magazine, and many of the writers are mentioned. What is missing? For copyedits: I'd be glad of some examples. It's a rare article that can't be improved by copyediting, but it does make it easier if you can point at particular problems. Mike Christie (talk) 04:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Forgot to respond to the first point, sorry. There's no minimum length requirement for an FA, and 17KB is certainly nothing like the shortest FA. Readable prose size is actually 12KB; Hurricane Irene (2005), which is the shortest featured article I know of, is only 5KB of readable prose. If it's not comprehensive, it shouldn't be FA, so I assume your subsequent comments cover the areas where you feel the article is not comprehensive. If so I'll wait to hear from you on those points since I don't yet see anything that's missing. Mike Christie (talk) 04:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: not comprehensive, too short, there aren't fundamental sections. --Brískelly 10:10, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Per Sandy's comment above, can you please be more specific on what would be needed for comprehensiveness and what sections are missing? Mike Christie (talk) 12:03, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, this; it would be helpful if contributors to FAC referred to WP:WIAFA and thoroughly reviewed articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:59, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• Comments I believe the two editors objecting to the length of the article need to review WP:WIAFA. Now, on to the article: generally well-written, but it could do with another proofread/copyedit to spruce up the writing. I corrected some of the odd punctuation/grammar errors, but their presence leads me to believe that the writing needs another look over. Some of the prose leaves me wondering about the details at times, too. Also, in my opinion the history section should be expanded with more details. How did it do financially? Circulation? How popular was it? The History section gives a lot of context for the era that the magazine appeared, which is good, but not much about the magazine itself. Other comments:
  • "...beginning to appear again; and it was..." Either make the semicolon a comma or get rid of "and".
  • "...the pretence had been dropped..." Are you sure pretence is the right word here? This gives the impression that the two were deliberately misleading readers at first. Is that what was going on? Also, since this is an American magazine, perhaps American spelling would be best?
  • "...he had left Ziff-Davis and described his plans." Which were?
  • "Palmer had a serious accident" What type of accident?
  • "Palmer promptly contacted William Hamling" Why? What was the purpose of contacting him?
  • Inconsistent comma use. The introductory clause "in [year]" is sometimes followed by a comma and sometimes not: "In 1954 Hamling", "In 1957, the", "By the end of 1958 many titles".
  • "SF encyclopedist" Is that some official title, or should SF really be "Science fiction"?
  • There's a tendency to rely on the colon for some reason, where the semicolon is more appropriate.
  • Be careful of superfluous prose: "Some readers, at least, agreed with Hamling".
  • "These were unusual in that they included photographs of the authors in question." Why is this unusual? Explain.
  • Are Mike Ashley and Michael Ashley different people? If so, why do you refer to the Transformations author as Michael Ashley in your 2nd footnote? 69.202.60.86 (talk) 16:24, 24 December 2007 (UTC)