Talk:ArabLit

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: withdrawn by nominator, closed by SnowFire (talk) 00:25, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

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• Article history

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• ... that many authors and most of the translators of modern Arabic literature are women, according to ArabLit magazine? Source: "In a 2010 essay, Abeer Esber wrote that “Unfortunately, women in Arab countries are currently finding it easier, for all the wrong reasons, to find a publisher for their books.” and "Surveys suggest that the majority of literary translators are women."
  • ALT1: ... that Arab women writers are easily finding publishers, but for all the wrong reasons, as ArabLit magazine reported? Source: "In a 2010 essay, Abeer Esber wrote that “Unfortunately, women in Arab countries are currently finding it easier, for all the wrong reasons, to find a publisher for their books.”
  • ALT2: ... that ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly magazines highlight Arab women writers' presence in English translations? Source: "Every August, ArabLit highlights literature by Arab women during the Women in Translation Month"
  • Reviewed: Abd al-Quddus al-Ansari
  • Comment: The cited sources ... reviewers need to know where they are, possibly by link, especially when they are not quoted inline or in footnotes. I think ALT1 has a lot of potential except for the fact that the cited quote is not even in the article. And it should be reworded to make it clear that this is not something we are claiming to be a fact. Like this ...
    • ALT3: ... that ArabLit magazine says Arab women writers are easily finding publishers, "but for all the wrong reasons"? Source: "In a 2010 essay, Abeer Esber wrote that “Unfortunately, women in Arab countries are currently finding it easier, for all the wrong reasons, to find a publisher for their books."

These issues should be addressed before this nomination is formally reviewed. Daniel Case (talk) 03:39, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, @Daniel Case:, for your comments. I have added the quote about "all the wrong reasons" to the text of the article and the source here after the hooks. Also, I agree with your comment and suggestion for ALT3. Munfarid1 (talk) 06:43, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Created by Munfarid1 (talk). Self-nominated at 11:50, 5 August 2022 (UTC).

• I'm not 100% sure if Daniel Case was "claiming" the review above, but based on his phrasing and the fact he's edited a decent amount since his comments, I'm assuming he isn't. (Feel free to "take it back" if you want.) I've struck both the first & second hook. The first hook doesn't seem to reflect the source. On the Esber quote, first, that's a person a different magazine interviewed (rather than the authorial voice of the magazine itself); second, she's talking about it being easier for women authors to be published, not about translators. Further, for the statement by ALQ itself, the referenced survey is a survey of all translators into English, not translators out of Arabic specifically. ALQ isn't making a claim about translators from Arabic specifically, as best I can tell. ALT1 is better but has the same problem - this would be more reasonably credited to Abeer Esber. I'd mildly vote against even ALT3, the fixed version, for being a bit too "clickbaity"; a little teasing is good, but not going into the "wrong reasons" either here or in the article seems unfair, and it's not even that interesting a wrong reason nor really stated in the source. Actually, now that I look more closely, ArabLit was merely quoting this person, who originally published on Qantara.de , so it's not even really a guest essay, right? Anybody can quote anyone else, so it seems strange to highlight this, any more than quoting an editorial in the Washington Post shouldn't imply the service commissioned it and wrote it somehow. So just going to strike that too. ALT2 is a little boring, but I still have concerns... does having a themed month really mean much? Having a theme, including "Women in XYZ", is very common, and certainly not every organization that does a Women in XYZ Month is actually that committed to inclusion of women. More generally, isn't the whole point of that article that women writers are attractive to Western audiences for the wrong reasons? As the header in the Dis:Orient article says, ArabLit wants to be "Qualität statt Identität, Kunst statt Berichterstattung." In other words, highlight the best quality kunst regardless of what audiences "want" to hear or on simple grounds of "identity." So women authors are being highlighted, but theoretically for reasons of them being very good, not merely because of being women. The linked source is rather ambivalent on this fact, really, closing with "we will focus not simply on highlighting works by women writers, but ...", which is not exactly an open-ended commitment to highlight Arab women.
• Anyway, my biggest concern is notability, here. Yes, this is DYKN not AFD, but as best I can tell, the sole secondary source that isn't a passing mention specifically on ArabLit or ArabLitQuarterly - not on Marcia Lynx Qualey - is the disorient.de article. Strangely, the Wikipedia article currently claims that the Disorient.de article is an interview with Qualey - if that's true, that's very concerning, as then there'd be no secondary sources. That said, as best I can tell from Google Translate, it doesn't seem like an interview? Which is good. Anyway, in my opinion, a rather partial piece in Dis:Orient isn't enough here. This may not be feasible, but I'm currently declining on criterion 4, verifiability. I'd consider trying to remove some of the irrelevant bits - like that Qualey attended an event at the Middle East Institute where she was one panelist among many, not really a notable occurrence - and find at least one other genuine secondary source that goes into AL in more depth than a sentence or a paragraph. If such a secondary source can't be found, that's fine, but I don't think the article is DYK-worthy until then. SnowFire (talk) 02:31, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Thanks, @SnowFire and @TSventon, for closely commenting on the hooks and the article. I have just copyedited to clarify the sentence about the article in Dis:Orient, which is not an interview, but an extensive discussion on the literary quality of Arab creative writing and the contribution of ArabLit to this complex matter. - I don't see however, on what grounds you qualify this article as "rather partial" or "partly independent".
  • I agree that the secondary sources talk about Qualey and ArabLit at the same time, but is this really a problem? Further, the LONDON BOOK FAIR INTERNATIONAL EXCELLENCE AWARDS specifically say that the magazine Arabic Literature (in English), by which they refer to ArabLit, won the Literary Translation Initiative Award, not Qualey as a person. - I will continue to search for other sources to ascertain ArabLit's notability and of course leave the decision, whether this article is notable enough for DYK to you or other reviewers, who might want to add to this discussion. Munfarid1 (talk) 07:41, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I didn't see the talk page conversation. I did check the sources before writing the above and came to much the same conclusion as TSventon - they are merely one to two sentence mentions of AL/ALQ or Qualey, but not significant coverage. There's no problem if a source discusses both Qualey and AL/ALQ, but many of these sources don't actually include a substantial discussion of AL/ALQ. I'll use the MEI reference again because it's easy to pick on: there's a tiny bio of Qualey that mentions she's an editor at AL/ALQ, but says absolutely nothing beyond the title about what the website / publication is. Everything else is similarly skimpy, except when it's a primary source sourced to AL/ALQ itself and its Patreon/YouTube/etc. The London Book Fair example is technically about ALQ, but it doesn't appear to be a prestigious award, it's a press release, and it spends all of one sentence on ALQ. It's very weak.
    • If it helps at all, not every article is suitable for DYK (well, for me, at least). I myself have made several articles I rather like that I felt I couldn't find sufficiently independent sources or sufficiently interesting facts to offer for DYK. Go ahead and take a shot, just there's no shame in not finding it - not every article is main-page ready. If you can find more sources, great; if they don't exist, I think the article is probably at least safe from AFD, so you can just wait until they come around. SnowFire (talk) 08:07, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

SnowFire (talk) I have added another secondary source in the last paragraph on Awards, but this is all I could find at the moment. Thanks for your close reading and valuable comments, and so we'll leave this nomination as unsuccessful. Do I have to do anyting to change it from Pending DYK nominations?Munfarid1 (talk) 06:54, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

References

Notability

Munfarid1, I saw this article at WP:DYK. Is ArabLit & ArabLit Quarterly sufficiently notable for a Wikipedia article? WP:ORGCRIT says an organisation "is presumed notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject". Most of the sources in the article are not independent of the subject and I can't see significant coverage in the independent sources. TSventon (talk) 07:55, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Hello @TSventon, I think we have to distinguish between those references that support the various activities of ArabLit and the others that reflect their work. Independent sources cited are the London Book Fair, Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, Dis: Orient, The International Journal of Young Adult Literature, the Middle East Institute and the Georgetown University Library. Munfarid1 (talk) 08:20, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Munfarid1, thank you for the list. I don't think those sources show "significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject".

• London Book Fair is independent, but only a single sentence
• Al Jazeera link only confirms that MLQ writes for them, so it is not independent and not about ArabLit
• Middle East Eye link only confirms that MLQ writes for them, so it is not independent and not about ArabLit
• Dis: Orient is a partly independent source, but includes an interview with MLQ, which is not independent
• The International Journal of Young Adult Literature (new) Lawrence Schimel is independent, but only says two sentences about ArabKidLitNow!, MLQ is not independent
• The Middle East Institute (new) only confirms that MLQ was a panellist at their festival, so it is not independent and not about ArabLit
• Georgetown University Library is independent, but only a single sentence. TSventon (talk) 07:26, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Munfarid1 this may be obvious, but have you looked for sources in Arabic? TSventon (talk) 07:35, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

@TSventon Yes I have, but so far without success. Unfortunately, there are only few Arabic publications writing on literature in translation. But thanks anyway. Munfarid1 (talk) 08:13, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Munfarid1, thank you, I tried an Arabic search, but didn't get far as I don't speak Arabic. I would encourage you to find at least two sources of more than a couple of sentences for your future articles. Wikipedia articles are supposed to summarise what independent sources say about a subject, rather than what the subject says about itself, and that is not possible when there is no significant coverage in independent sources. TSventon (talk) 08:59, 17 August 2022 (UTC)