Wikipedia:Featured article review/Søren Kierkegaard/archive1: Difference between revisions

• Featured article candidates/Søren Kierkegaard/Archive1
• Featured article candidates/Søren Kierkegaard/archive1

• Featured article review/Søren Kierkegaard/archive1

Notified: Poor Yorick, WikiProject Psychology, WikiProject Denmark, WikiProject Christianity, WikiProject Philosophy

I am nominating this featured article for review because it no longer meets the FA criteria. It has been three long years, and while FA has evolved, the article has not. The main issue is 2c), as parts of the article are entirely unreferenced, and most parts lack some referencing. Other issues include the lead not being too short, and even finishing off with a one-sentence paragraph (2a). The images lack alt-text, at one point the images sandwich the text and all the portraits have the eyes looking out of the article (they are wrongly aligned). Why there needs to be two shots of the same grave, I do not know, particularly when the one is of rather bad composition. The texts consist of eleven (unless i counted wrong) rather long quotes in two styles, most that add nothing to the understanding of the article, or merely seem to function as either decoration or an attempt to "educate" the reader through excessive use of primary sources. For instance the section "Kierkegaard and Christianity" consists almost entirely of a bulleted list of prose and quotes. There is a lot of overlinking, for instance Denmark is suddenly linked in the middle of the article, and Danish State Church is linked several times, even when they are very close. Concerning specific points in the text, I don't quite understand why I would confuse the two Schlegels. There is also incorrect use of italics in the "Kierkegaard and Christianity" section. The article seems to have an excessive number of external links, of varying quality. The four see-also links should be weaved into the article text, to provide context. The biography should be put in a table, and ref. 47 is incorrectly formatted. In the bibliography section, "P. Houe and Gordon D. Marino ed." is linked. Arsenikk ^(talk) 22:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I am interested in rescuing this. If the issues are all individual ones, it would be helpful if you could itemise them line by line, with suggestions where possible. From WP:PHIL,  Skomorokh  01:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 47 (Kierkegaard's Reception in Japan) Corrected

Merged one-sentence paragraph into larger paragraph

Bibliography "P. Houe and Gordon D. Marino ed." unlinked, made consistent

Pruned external links to 7, corrected links

See also links integrated into article

Added alt-text to images, except in infobox which already has a caption for alt images

removed duplicate image of grave

reduced number of quotation boxes and re-integrated into main text

expanded lead

Aside from referencing 2c and SK and Christianity part, which I will get to later, are there any other comments on the article? Poor Yorick (talk) 01:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Debulletized SK and Christianity.

Added references

-- Poor Yorick (talk) 11:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Please arrange the images so that the people look into the article. Just three comments on the images:

• File:Søren Kierkegaard i Corsaren.jpg: year of publication missing
• File:Kierkegaard olavius.jpg: generally, the original source of the image file should be given
• File:Cover journals kierkegaard.png: possibly not in the public domain in the United States. DrKiernan (talk) 09:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Issues addressed, Details filed in for images. Poor Yorick (talk) 11:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments, nice to see that there is enthusiasm to get the article up to standards, and that action was quickly taken to counter the comments. There are still many paragraphs and sentences without references, and these need to be filled in. I have gone slightly more viciously through the article and have some more comments:

• The article says "Danish National Church", but the article refers to it as both the "Church of Denmark", the "Danish People's Church" and the "Danish State Church". Normally such institutions (particularly in Scandinavia) have an official translation of their name into English, and we should stick to it. Also, this institution is wikilinked several times.

-Will link to Danish National Church

-Done. Poor Yorick (talk) 06:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I would have though that "Western Philosophers" (in the infobox) was not a proper noun and therefore should not be capitalized.
• Under "early life", the article first talks about his father (in relation to his mother), but does not mention his father's name until the end of the paragraph.
• Describing someone as a "fiercely intelligent man" sounds very subjective and I would like to have seen multiple sources support such a claim.

-It's the phrase used by Garff, but will look for other references that support the meaning of that claim

• Ref 13 should be after the comma.
• The sentence "Though five of his seven children died before he did, both Søren and his brother Peter Christian Kierkegaard, seven years his elder who later became bishop in Aalborg, outlived him." needs to be split up—there is too much to digest and it needs to be read twice to be understood.
• I do not see the encyclopedic value of the quote about his father.

- One quote each for two of SK's most important influences, his father's death and the love for his ex-fiancee.

• The article uses two different styles of blockquote—please stick to only one.
• Copenhagen is suddenly linked in the section on Regine Olsen.
• "Governor" in the way used here is not capitalized.
• "On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates" is overlinked, as is "Johan Frederik Schlegel".
• "Kierkegaard-Olsen relationship" should use an endash instead of a hyphen.
• The quote about Regine seems a bit off topic. It seems unencyclopedic to use quotes in the life section.

- One quote each for two of SK's most important influences, his father and ex-fiancee.

• I do not understand the capitalization in "The Rational is the Real and the Real is the Rational".
• The image of Regine and the caricature should both be aligned to the right, so the faces and eyes look into the page.
• In "On 22 December 1845, a young author of Kierkegaard's generation who studied at the University of Copenhagen at the same time as Kierkegaard", there should be a comma before "who".

-Rearranged noun location

• I don't know if "ire" is a common enough term to be used on Wikipedia.

-It's still a valid English word

Perfectly good word in my opinion. I think it should stay. (Ice Explorer (talk) 17:36, 14 December 2009 (UTC))[reply]

• In "In all, Kierkegaard wrote two small pieces in response to Møller", the "in all" should be redundant.
• Are really the two responses worthy of an article? If they are, I would suggest creating at least a stub on them.

-Will do

• The sentence "In a journal entry made on March 9, 1846, Kierkegaard makes a long, detailed explanation of his attack on Møller and The Corsair, and also explains that this attack made him rethink his strategy of indirect communication." should be in past tense, like the rest of the prose.
• The sentence "It is important to realise that by Christendom Kierkegaard meant not Christianity itself, but rather the church and the applied religion of his society." need an extra comma. However, another issue is that it is not considered appropriate for us to say what is important and not, so try to use a more neutral phrase or just stating the fact.
• The sentence "At Kierkegaard's funeral, his nephew Henrik Lund caused a disturbance by protesting that Kierkegaard was being buried by the official church, which he would never have approved, had he been alive, as he had broken from and denounced it." is a bit too long.

I've looked through the lead and "life", but lack of time at the moment forces me to return with feedback of the rest of the article later. Arsenikk ^(talk) 14:42, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the specific list, Arsenikk. I've addressed about half of these, leaving the more substantive editorial decisions and the ones I was unsure of for Poor Yorick.  Skomorokh  20:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Will look into some more. Poor Yorick (talk) 22:03, 10 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Red links

I created an article for Adolph Peter Adler and I'll work on some of the other red links. (Ice Explorer (talk) 17:14, 14 December 2009 (UTC))[reply]

• Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Alt text is present, but I'm afraid it needs a lot of work; see WP:ALT. The alt text that is present simply repeats part of the caption, which does not help the visually impaired reader (see WP:ALT#Repetition); it should be rewritten from scratch, so that it describes the visual aspect of the images and does not repeat the caption; please see WP:ALT#Portraits and WP:ALT#Text for specific advice about portraits and text (most of the images in this article). Also, alt text is missing for File:Kierkegaard.jpg and for File:Kierkegaard sig.png. Eubulides (talk) 07:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Infobox philosopher does not have alt text parameters, so we cannot add ALT for File:Kierkegaard.jpg and File:Kierkegaard sig.png. Corrected ALT-Text for the rest of the images. Poor Yorick (talk) 06:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for adding alt text. Template:Infobox philosopher does have alt text parameters now: I just added |signature_alt=, and it already had an (undocumented) |image_alt=, so you can add alt text for its two images now. The alt text for the other images is mostly good, but I'll comment on the problems I found:

• For File:Manuscript philosophical fragments.png the alt text says "Philosophical Fragments" but the image says something else. Please transcribe what the image actually says ("Philosophiske Smuler ..."), rather than translating it into English; this is as per WP:ALT#Text and WP:ALT#Verifiability. (The translation is already in the caption anyway.) The alt text also says "No. 12" but the actual text is "Nr. 12 a"; please transcribe the original. I suggest transcribing the entire title rather than just some of it, and to spell out the mispelling and the correction.
• For File:Søren Kierkegaard i Corsaren.jpg please remove the the word "Kierkegaard" from the alt text, as per WP:ALT#Verifiability and WP:ALT#Repetition.
• For the alt text "Excerpt of three paragraphs of The Sickness Unto Death; written in Kierkegaard's handwriting." please keep the "three paragraphs" and "written" and "handwriting" but remove everything else, and replace it with a description of what's in the image (the removed stuff cannot be verified by a non-expert who is looking only at the image, as per WP:ALT#Verifiability).
• Similarly, for File:Kierkegaard olavius.jpg please remove the phrases "Kierkegaard" (3 occurrences) and "by Christian Olavius", as per WP:ALT#Verifiability.
• "Title Page" should be "Title page".
• "Enten-Eller" should be "Enten – Eller" (spaced endash; I guess that's an endash, right?)
• "SOREN KIERKEGAARD" should be "SØREN KIERKEGAARD" (two instances)
• "the Danish National Church" should be removed as per WP:ALT#Verifiability.

Please let me strike my own comments after you've fixed the problem. And thanks again. Eubulides (talk) 06:54, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Poor Yorick (talk) 08:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I struck the above comments. Almost done. Now for the recently-added text:

• The alt text for the lead image should say a bit about what Kierkegaard looked like, in particular that hair that rises straight up about 8 cm, and also that he's a young man, the high forehead, and the triangular face. It should also say it's just a head-and-shoulders portrait. Please see WP:ALT#Portraits for guidance.
• "of Kierkegaard by Niels Christian Kierkegaard" needs to be removed, as per WP:ALT#Verifiability.
• You can remove "Kierkegaard's signature, which reads:". Or at least please remove the initial "Kierkegaard's" there, as it's redundant.
• "A Building" should be "A building", and "A Statue" "A statue".

Eubulides (talk) 09:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the first point, I'm just using the template from Mary Bartelme in WP:ALT Portraits for the first image; probably shouldn't be estimating using precise measurements like 8 cm. Otherwise, Done. Poor Yorick (talk) 12:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What? we can't just say that his hair looks like Syndrome's? Anyway, thanks for doing all that; it looks good now. Eubulides (talk) 17:38, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Featured article criterion concerns are referencing, lead, MOS. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:06, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing, Lead, and MOS addressed in specific points made above. Please list additional items if any below. If there are no additional items, please close FARC. Poor Yorick (talk) 03:59, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: there is far too much uncited text still. As but one example (there are many) of text that needs citing,

• Kierkegaard's vision of the world was that it was composed of an endless variety of subjective alternate realities, forcing one to jump and proclaim one's choice of a direct and immediately accessible reality, rather than conflationary versions commonly tethered.

There are also citation cleanup needs, which can be worked on once the article is fully cited. Also, incorrect use of WP:ITALICS throughout. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:12, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Would like assistance in determining which paragraphs need specific reference and are contentious sentences, otherwise as per WP:REF, we would be following General Reference, simplying "adding the citation at the end." Poor Yorick (talk) 09:19, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• • Also some paragraphs were just cited with a book without specifying which parts of the book YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:15, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is using author-date APA style referencing, it would help to know exactly which paragraphs do not conform to APA style. Poor Yorick (talk) 09:19, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's using inline footnotes/citations not parenthetical ones. I was asking why they just go to a book without specifiying which of hte possibly hundreds of pages it is. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:25, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In APA style inline referencing, you only need the author and date, not the page number, except when using direct quotations, which are already done in references such as #17, #43, and #44. I see #8 and #32 doesn't have any page numbers, I will fix those ones. Poor Yorick (talk) 06:33, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article has been brought up to current Featured article criteria since its nomination in December by Arsenikk.

• 1c has been addressed: statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, including contentious material about living persons, and for all direct quotations have been referenced and cited. This article is not about a living person and the biographies of Kierkegaard already support significant amounts of the material, as per WP:REF#General reference. The article is not subject to ongoing edit wars regarding challenged statements as per 1e.
• 2a has been addressed: a single sentence paragraph for the lead has been expanded
• 2c has been addressed: the article uses citations, footnotes and references in author-date APA style.
• 3 has been addressed: images now have alt-text tags. Copyright status for all images have been confirmed to be Public Domain or other acceptable licenses in the US and countries which use the life of the author + 50 years or less.

Cheers, Poor Yorick (talk) 06:35, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• The referencing style is still erratic. Some split references are used that give "Author Year: Page" in the notes and complete information in the references section. Others give full information in both notes and references, but they are in different formats. Others give full information in the notes with nothing in the references. And still others give full information in the references section but nothing in the notes section. They need to be standardized to use one format (I personally perfer the first, with short refs in the notes and full refs in the references, but it's up to you). Books that are not used for in-line citations should be moved to a "further reading" section.

I'll look into that ---Reformatted and standarized to (Author, Date), Done

• Although I believe you are correct that true APA style referencing doesn't use page numbers, for an FA-status article on Wikipedia you need them. At least a page range (or sometimes a chapter, if it's short) is needed, so that readers know where to go in a book; this is especially true if it's a long book.

WP:FA? does not list the requirement that author-page must be used, not author-date as in APA style. APA is still an acceptable citation style as per WP:CITE. In APA style, page numbers are needed only for direct quotations.

APA style does not necessarily say that it is always author-date. Per WP:CITE, the same page you quote, "You should identify any part of a source that you quote, paraphrase or cite; in the case of a book, specify the page number(s)." and "comprising only the surname of the author(s) and the year of publication, and possibly page numbers (APA style)...Using author-date parenthetical references, the inline citation usually looks like: (Author 2006:28) or (Author 2006, p. 28)."

In that same page: "There are a number of citation styles. They all include the same information but vary in punctuation and the order of the author's name, publication date, title, and page numbers. Any of these styles is acceptable on Wikipedia so long as each article is internally consistent." I've just now made the article internally consistent in APA style, as per WP:FA? "In parenthetical citations, a short version of the citation is added in parentheses just after the point it is supporting, comprising only the surname of the author(s) and the year of publication, and possibly page numbers (APA style)" Page numbers are only needed in direct quotations. (APA Style#citation)

As for the first comment, yes, they vary in the order of these things, not whether or not they are included (and, please read "they all include the same information"). As for the second, please don't link to the wiki page about APA style to make your case, as citing mainspace wiki pages shows nothing. Instead, link to a internal Wikipedia guideline/policy that says APA style referencing doesn't have to include page numbers. Dana boomer (talk) 02:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing: "Under the author-date referencing system, a book is cited in the text in parentheses, after the section, sentence, or paragraph for which the book was used as a source, using the surname of the author and the year of publication only, with the parentheses closing before the period, as in (Author 2005). A complete citation is then placed at the end of the text in an alphabetized list of "References"."

Wikipedia:CITE: "Two forms of parenthetical referencing may also be used in Wikipedia: author-date referencing (APA style, Harvard style, or Chicago style); and author-title or author-page referencing (MLA style or Chicago style)." We are using author-date referencing (APA).

Wikipedia:Inline citation: "Harvard reference (also known as Parenthetical referencing), is the simplest way to cite sources not online. Such citations usually appear following punctuation. Various formats are seen, e.g. (author, date), author (date):page, etc. Such citations are often superscripted." This article is using the format example used in the former, NOT the latter.

Wikipedia:Inline_citation/examples#Simple parenthetical referencing: "(Smith 2000), or ^{(Smith 2000)}, or (Smith 2000) harv error: no target: CITEREFSmith2000 (help)" are acceptable.

Wikipedia:CITE: "You should follow the style already established in an article, if it has one; where there is disagreement, the style used by the first editor to use one should be respected." The article had no referencing style before 2006 (November 2005: [1])! I brought the article to FA status in 2006 using APA style, not MLA style. I'm so tired of having to keep reiterating this point regarding APA! Poor Yorick (talk) 02:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Dana, if the Featured article criteria says we must use MLA, I will use it, but as long as we're free to use any citation as long as they are consistent, I will use APA. Poor Yorick (talk) 16:42, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The featured article criteria does not specify a reference formatting, as I'm sure you know. However, as I wasn't sure what the correct answer was on this, I asked a couple of the sourcing/MOS gurus from FAC, to see what their thoughts were. User:Ealdgyth said that "Everything needs page numbers, unless it's a journal article/pamplet.", while User:SandyGeorgia said "there are cases where we don't use page numbers, for example when citing journals in medical articles, but we generally do need them", but said she would stop by the review in the next few days to look more closely. Dana boomer (talk) 02:46, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The general rule is that page numbers are needed if the source is too long to expect a reader to scan through the whole thing to verify a claim that is supported by just a part of the work. "Long" is a relative term here, of course, but the usual rule is that journal articles and book chapters are "short", whereas journals and books themselves are "long". This isn't a matter of policy, but it is a good guideline; see, for example Wikipedia:Citing sources #Identifying parts of a source. Eubulides (talk) 19:28, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the input Dana and Eubuildes. As soon as Featured Article Criteria lists page numbers as a requirment for an article to be Featured, I'll make sure to add those page numbers in. Besides that, is there anything else with the article? Poor Yorick (talk) 21:53, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• What makes ref #35 (Lowrie, Walter) a reliable reference? Also, Lowrie is not the author. They used his work, but I don't think he actually wrote the page.

Corrected Lowrie ref with source from his actual book. Lowrie is reliable as he was one of the first scholars on Kierkegaard. That webpage was not.

• What makes ref #53 (Søren Kierkegaard's Journal Commentary) a reliable reference? The author admits on his "about us" page that he is an amateur who is mainly self-taught. Same for #27, 66.

D. Anthony Storm is a tertiary source, as Mr. Storm uses secondary sources as well. He is not a fork of Wikipedia or based on any forks of wiki related sites. As per WP:Reliable: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable secondary sources. This means that while primary or tertiary sources can be used to support specific statements, the bulk of the article should rely on secondary sources." Mr. Storm is used three times only in this article and thus does not constitute the bulk of the article.

It doesn't matter whether he constitutes the bulk of the article if he's not reliable, which as an amateur, I don't believe he is. Tertiary sources cannot be included in a FA just because they are supposedly based on secondary information, just as primary sources cannot be included in an article without a mention that they are indeed primary sources (i.e. "Edith said xyz(primary reference)" in an article about Edith Roosevelt). To prove that Mr. Storm is a reliable source, you must show that he is an expert in his field, having been published in peer-reviewed journals, acting as a professor in the subject, having been mentioned as an expert by major news organizations, etc.

If there are reliable source replacements I'll look for them. ---Done

• What makes ref #67 (Georg Brandes) a reliable reference?

Mr. Brandes is a well respected Danish scholar and one of the first scholars on Kierkegaard. The site is an acceptable tertiary source summarizing his life.

I'm not doubting that Brandes is a respected scholar. However, what makes the site a reliable reference on Brandes? What fact checking do they do? Who writes the articles? What expertise does the author have in writing articles/writing about Brandes?

If there are reliable source replacements I'll look for them. ---Done

• Not necessary, but have you considered splitting the informational notes out from the referential notes? This may make both easier to read and navigate, but it's up to you.

I'll look into that --- Now that references are cleaner and standardized, informational and referential notes are easier to make out.

• I've added several fact tags, each accompanied by a hidden comment that explains my rationale.

Referenced those facts.

• There is still unneeded italicization in the article, for example "most trusted confidant" in the Journals section.

Got it, let me know of other unneeded italicization.

I think this is done, but Sandy is the MOS person, so I'll leave this out until she gives the all clear, especially considering she was the one that raised the concern in the first place.

• I'm going to try to find some other philosphy/psychology type people to comment on this. I'm not a content expert, so I'm hoping to get someone in who really knows the subject to be able to pick out any problems that I don't find. I haven't done a check of the prose yet, so once the above are taken care of, that will still need to be done.

There are people checking prose and factual info such as Skomorokh and Laser Brain (Andy)

I see. I have already dropped a note to Skomorokh asking him to comment here. However, if they are not major contributors to the article, you may want to ask them to comment here when their concerns have been addressed. Without keep votes, the article will stay in limbo for quite some time. By asking content, prose and sourcing experts to comment here (neutrally, of course, to avoid any appearance of canvassing), the review can be closed faster and we can all go about our lives :)

Overall a nice article, and it looks like you've put a lot of work into it, but still some effort needed before it is back to FA status. Dana boomer (talk) 00:06, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is already FA status, it just needs a few minor corrections. Cheers, Poor Yorick (talk) 22:14, 28 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

More replies above. Dana boomer (talk) 01:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Replied above. Poor Yorick (talk) 01:54, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies for having taken so long to get back to this review. As I have said above, SandyGeorgia has promised to stop by in the next few days to look over the article, and I have dropped another note to Skomorokh noting his contributions to the FARC section and asking him to come back and give us his opinion on the current state of the article. Dana boomer (talk) 02:46, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Besides all the points raised earlier in this review, are there any new questions about this article? Poor Yorick (talk) 21:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay; I'll look at other things once page numbers are provided. Page nos. are given on book citations, but not on journal articles or online news sources. (See WP:CITE). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:57, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's right, Sandy, as per Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing: "When citing books and articles, provide page numbers where appropriate. Page numbers must be included in a citation that accompanies a specific quotation from or a paraphrase or reference to a specific passage of a book or article." The article DOES indeed use page numbers in such cases in references like #49, #84, #87, #99. But in general: "Under the author-date referencing system, a book is cited in the text in parentheses, after the section, sentence, or paragraph for which the book was used as a source, using the surname of the author and the year of publication only". The article referential notes do include the surname of the author and the year of publication only. WP:CITE allows usage of this referencing system: "Two forms of parenthetical referencing may also be used in Wikipedia: author-date referencing (APA style, Harvard style, or Chicago style); and author-title or author-page referencing (MLA style or Chicago style)." (emphasis added) Poor Yorick (talk) 05:35, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You have no one opining that this FA should be Kept, four editors asking for page numbers, and for some reason, they aren't being provided. This looks to be an invitation for someone to cite tag the article for specific places where full citation is needed (which is not usually done at FAR). I'm unclear what the issue is here: do you not have the sources ? Why are you wikilawyering a citation system, when providing the page numbers is easier and quicker, and four editors have asked for them? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This article is using APA style, and it was promoted to FA using this style. As long as APA is allowed, I will use this style. If FA says APA is not allowed, I will use MLA Poor Yorick (talk) 05:41, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]