Wikipedia:Peer review/Joyce Kilmer/archive1

Joyce Kilmer

I've done a lot of work to bring this article from stub to where it is now. (It was just named a Good Article today, only a mere 1 hour and 56 minutes after I nominated it.) I'd like to improve it, as it's always possible to improve things, and I wonder if this is worthy for inclusion among the Featured Articles. Thank you in advance for comments, suggestions and efforts in this regard. —ExplorerCDT 00:19, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• Overall a very interesting article and obviously a lot of work has gone into it. I did some copyedits on this, split the lead into two paragraphs, and added the {{fact}} tag in a few places where FAC will ask for references. I have some suggestions / questions, as follows:

  G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc are mentioned in the Lead but not in the body of the article - the Lead should not have anything that is not in the body and this needs a ref. Since Kilmer died in 1918, any photo of him is now a free image, and I would add more photos to the article (the one in the infobox is very nice). FAC will probably point out that quotations are not to be in italics. The quotation "...some of the poems in it, those inspired by genuine love, are not things of which to be ashamed, and you, understanding, would not be offended by the others." needs a ref and needs to be put into context (to whom is it addressed - Kilmer's wife?). Some of the paragraphs are very short (one or two sentences) and may be better somehow combined with other paragraphs.

  In some places dates / years are repeated too much - I tried to fix a few of these (i.e. ...in 1916, the following year... then (1917) x 3). The date of death also seems to be repeated twice in close succession. In some places, dates are needed: I would give the date of either Rose's death or the last son's birth. The sentence "During his time in Europe, Kilmer did write prose sketches and poetry, most notably the poem "Rouge Bouquet", which was written after the First Battalion of the 42nd Division, which had been occupying the Rouge Bouquet forest northeast of the French village of Baccarat, which at the time was a quiet sector of the front—was struck by a heavy artillery bombardment on the afternoon of March 12, 1918 that buried 21 men of the unit, of which 14 remained entombed." is too long and complicated, and should be simplified and perhaps split into two.

  The Works section needs some sort of introduction - at first I thought the article was over and this a list at the end. Some might argue the section on Trees (poem) be split off into its own separate article. Since there is a note not to change the text of the poem, should the subsequent changes be discussed? The section on Criticism and influence could be longer (Chesterton and Belloc could be here) and needs refs. Some might be interested in a few sentences on what happened to Kilmer's family after his death. Since Rouge Bouquet is his second best known poem and mentioned in the article, would some more mention of it be helpful (quote some of it, criticisms, comparison to other WWI poems)? Also it could be on Wikisource (the other poem there is not discussed here), now I see at least some of it is on Wikiquote. Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch 03:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

  • First reply: The reason for the note regarding text of trees, this was here before I worked on the article and aside from moving editions changing the word "prest" in the orignal to "pressed" there are no other "official" modified versions of the poem. Chiefly, from what I've seen, the reason for the "don't change the text" was because people (most often anonymous jerkoffs) were vandalizing the poem by inserting various vulgar parodies. I'll be responding to your other concerns later tonight. Thanks for the thorough copy-edit and some pretty good ideas. —ExplorerCDT 03:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Second reply: I've de-italicised the quotations. I do ask further, should the text of the poem "Trees" be similarly de-italicised? I've pre-emptively de-italicised the poem text. Regarding the poem, I've thought about splitting it off to a new article, but I've been racked with indecision. There are as many good reasons to split it off as there are reasons to keep it here. I have no clue what to do with it or whether something really needs to be done. The remainder of your comments will be addressed as per your suggestions. I sincerely appreciate your work and your ideas. —ExplorerCDT 23:58, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Sorry, I was not watching this page. My reading of the MOS is that the poem text should also not be italicized. If you think it should, keep it in italics and see what they say in FAC. In addition to possible calls to split off a Trees subarticle, there may be those who say the full text of the poem need not be given here or there (if they do say so, they will also likely say "That's what Wikisource is for"). If the poem is split off into its own article, you might want to think about what to put in the main article (as a briefer version of the subarticle is left behind). You might also want to think about what lines of the poem could be cited if the whole can not be. Just a word of warning, if there is an edit war going on, the article will not make it in FAC (as it must be stable). Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch 04:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)