Talk:Authentic Science Fiction

FAC comments

I had just a few nitpicks regarding the prose and I didn't want to clutter up the FAC with them.

• During much of its life it competed against three other moderately successful British science fiction magazines, as well as the American magazine market. - American SF magazine market?
• The magazine folded in October 1957, brought to an end by its owner's need for cash to finance an investment in the UK rights to an American best-selling novel. - I had to read this sentence twice - it is a little awkward.
• The last time I read SF criticism, albeit about five years ago, SF was capitalized. Has this changed?
• What about "Historical context" for a section title? I'm not really sure what the difference is between "History" and "context" in the section at the moment.
• Landsborough has commented that this was only intended to indicate the publishing schedule to readers,[5] but in addition to the banner on the cover, a contents page was added giving the date and issue number, a letter column and editorial appeared, and an advertisement for subscriptions appeared next to the editorial, all giving the issue a much more magazine-like appearance. - Too much in one sentence.
• Instead of "Content and criticism" for a section title, what about "Content and literary analysis"? "Criticism" has such a negative connotation.

Like I said, tiny things. Awadewit | talk 19:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi -- thanks for the comments; I appreciate the attention to detail. Changes:

• During much of its life -- Good catch. I made this "American science fiction magazine" as I haven't introduced an abbreviation for science fiction at this point, and I would prefer not to in the lead.
• The last time -- It can be "SF" or "sf"; it's a matter of preference, and my own is for "sf". The science fiction article uses "sf"; but the main Encyclopedia of science fiction, the Nicholls/Clute, uses "sf" throughout. I think the caps are ugly when they appear all through the text. However, if this hampers understanding, it should be changed; let me know.

• I think "sf" is a little harder to read, but that is a personal reaction. No need to change it, if there is precedence. Awadewit | talk 01:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• What about -- good idea; done.
• Landsborough has commented -- I've reworded this and cut it into two sentences -- let me know if this works better.

• I think the second sentence is still a little wordy. Perhaps aiming for a more parallel structure would help? Awadewit | talk 01:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• I've had another go at this, reorganizing another sentence or two around it. What do you think now? Mike Christie (talk) 15:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• I tried to reduce it further. See what you think. Awadewit | talk 01:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Nicely done. Thanks! Mike Christie (talk) 01:16, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

• Instead of -- I've made the change you suggested, but I wonder if there is a better section title than either choice -- "literary analysis" sounds so grand for the passing comments these sf historians are making.

• Other choices that come to mind are "analysis", "reception", and "critical commentary". Awadewit | talk 01:21, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• I like "reception", so I used that. Mike Christie (talk) 15:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll go take a look at your FAC comments next. Thanks again. Mike Christie (talk) 00:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

SF vs sf

Oops, typo above. I meant that science fiction uses "SF", not "sf". So there is WP precedent for "SF", not "sf"; there precedents outside WP for "sf". Mike Christie (talk) 11:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

As long as there are scholarly precedents for "sf", I think you are fine. Awadewit | talk 01:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits by Pmcalduf

The category and white space edits look fine to me, but I'm not sure the "See also" section is worth it -- several of the magazines linked don't really apply here (online, fantasy, horror), and I doubt if "magazine" is worth linking to. The lead already links to both magazine and science fiction magazine, so I think those are both unnecessary. Any thoughts? Mike Christie (talk) 12:18, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

The two category additions were useful, but the categories that were removed should stay in, as they still apply. All the 'See alsos' were irrelevant or redundant, and didn't show an understanding of WP:ALSO. The {{Science fiction}} template was wrong too, since the article isn't named in it. I've done the reversions. When an article is FA you have to be ruthless about reverting edits that degrade its quality.... Wasted Time R (talk) 13:24, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Pmcalduff has been making similar edits to quite a few other magazine articles, including two other FAs, Beyond Fantasy Fiction and Fantastic Universe. I'll revert some of them myself; but I'm not clear about this point you make: "The {{Science fiction}} template was wrong too, since the article isn't named in it." What does that mean? I'm not particularly au fait with templates and categories; can you explain? Mike Christie (talk) 13:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Normally navigational templates are used only in the articles they directly link to. So, for example, Template:Musical notation is used in the article Time signature, and when it appears there, the "Time signature" link is replaced by bolding, to indicate that that is where you "are" within the template. See WP:NAV for more. However Template:Science fiction doesn't seem to do this; the articles pointed to it, such as Hard science fiction or Time travel in fiction, don't include the template. That makes no sense to me. Instead, the template is just being included in a bunch of articles about specific books, magazines, etc. ... so it's not being used in the typical navigational sense. Maybe this is per the design of the template creators, or maybe Pmcalduff has just gone off on his/her own. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, now I understand. Thanks for the clarification. Mike Christie (talk) 14:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:URFA/2020

Looking at this as part of the ongoing URFA/2020 FA sweeps. This one looks like it's in pretty good shape, although it needs some tidying in places. The lead should generally include something from all sections, but the bibliographic material isn't really represented in the lead. Based on the gbooks preview of Ashley's Transformation, some of the primary-sourced stuff like From the ninth issue to the end Authentic maintained a completely regular monthly schedule except for the omission of the October 1956 issue. can probably be sourced to that (Ashley includes a table of issues of the magazine). My one concern with sourcing I noticed is and with it the last vestige of the origin of the magazine as a series of novels is primary sourced to the magazine issues themselves; it would probably be best to find a secondary source for this specific conclusion. Hog Farm _Talk 03:55, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Hog Farm, thanks for looking at this. I'll put my responses in a bullet list in case we need to discuss any points further.

• I don't think there's anything else from the bibliographic section needed in the lead -- that section collects together some fairly dry data, for easy reference for magazine geeks like me. I think all that's needed in the lead is the dates and the editors. Sometimes in these magazine articles I add things like changes to the title, and that could be done here if you think it's worth it, though it would be complicated here because it didn't get a series title until the third issue.
• Non-primary sources added for some of the material. For the paragraph you mention, I guess this could be considered synthesis, but since the sources do specifically talk about how the magazine gradually changed its appearance from a series of novels to a monthly magazine, I'd like to keep this.
• I added a little from the 1985 Ashley article and will look through to see if there's more that could be added.

More this evening; I'm out of time but I have replaced one citation with a non-primary source and should be able to do more of that tonight. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:29, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Hog Farm, how does it look now? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:50, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

It looks satisfactory enough to me. If you'd be willing to note that you view the article as satisfactory at it's entry in the WP:URFA/2020 table, that would be very helpful to the FA sweeps project. Hog Farm _Talk 15:15, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Marking "Satisfactory" at URFA, but recommend adding &nbsp in those instances where issue x might wrap with one line ending with issue and the next line starting with a number. Otherwise good! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:17, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Good idea -- done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:09, 29 November 2021 (UTC)