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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 10:48, 16 May 2009 [1].

Idries Shah

[edit]
Nominator(s): Jayen466 15:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured article because I've had encouraging feedback on the article and believe it satisfies the FA criteria. The article passed a GA review six months ago and has been stable since then. Jayen466 15:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • I've had an e-mail forwarded to me from the administrator of Shah's estate; the image's copyright is apparently held by the estate, and they give permission for us to use the texts we quote. The e-mail is informal; if a particular wording is required, please advise. Jayen466 20:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Re: image, I am not exactly sure how you should write up the image description, but you might ask at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. Alternatively, you might impose on User:Awadewit -- she gave me a very helpful image review a little while ago. ~ You might also try, if you haven't already, leaving a message on Fasach Nua's talk page, but FN has a history of simply deleting all requests for clarification without further response. Ricardiana (talk) 22:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In references, "pp" refers to multiple pages while "p" only refers to one. Many references in the article have two "p"s for one page. You should fix this. One can go about this by going to the "Cite book" templates and removing the "s" at the end of "pages". This will cause the reference to appear with only one "p". Mm40 (talk) 21:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links not checked with the link checker tool, as it was misbehaving. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:06, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Citation template converted to cite news format.
    • Bracelin ref dropped. It did not support any textual content. Jayen466 06:31, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The book was published in 1964, and the Washington Post online archive does not go that far back. I guess that without a publication date, even sitting in a US library it would be difficult to locate the article. If someone can do so, great; for now, I have deleted the quote. Jayen466 07:39, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - First of all, thank you for an interesting article. I read Shah's Darkest England and some of his Nasrudin tales some years ago, with enjoyment, and it was a pleasure to find out more about Shah.
  • That said, I had some comments, mainly about sources. The end of the "Recognition" section repeatedly cites the same pages of the same source, that seems awkward to me, as if you're summarizing those pages of that source, rather than synthesising material into an encyclopedia article. The related "Legacy" section suffers from a different, but similar problem: it's just rather short. In both cases, I think that more sources would be helpful; I found a number of book reviews and other articles in JSTOR that could be very helpful in rounding out the discussion of how Shah has been perceived. If you can't access JSTOR, let me know and I will try to get the articles to you. Best, Ricardiana (talk) 16:02, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

* One other thing - I notice that the disambig link finder above finds about half-a-dozen ambiguous links. You should fix all those. Ricardiana (talk) 16:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • Thanks! I think I know what you mean; that section was written earlier, when the overall structure of the article was not established yet, and it still doesn't quite fit smoothly into the structure. It also repeats a couple of points already made earlier.
    • I can't access JSTOR, so I would indeed be very grateful for any additional sources. I have e-mail enabled.
    • Thanks for pointing out the ambiguous links. I'll look into that as well. Jayen466 20:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, 1a. A great start, but the prose is rough. I suggest getting an uninvolved copyeditor to go through it. Lots of work needed on consistency and general grammar. Some examples just from the lead and first sections:
    • "mid-1950s"
    • "he founded a publishing house ... publishing" Revise to avoid this repetition.
    • "His most seminal work" Hmm.. something is seminal or not. There aren't really degrees. Suggest "One of his seminal works" or "His seminal work"
    • I see a mixture of British and American English.. we need consistency.
    • "His role in the controversy ... came in for particular scrutiny." How does a role "come in"?
    • "But he also had many notable defenders, chief among them the novelist Doris Lessing." Grammar.
    • The use of tense when discussing his written works needs review and revision. Shah wrote things (past tense) but the books discuss things (present tense). So, "The book chronicled the impact Sufism had made ..." is incorrect.
--Laser brain (talk) 18:04, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say that was grounds for opposition. Jayen has a good track record for getting things fixed at short notice. Esowteric (talk) 18:38, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article not meeting criterion 1a isn't grounds for opposition? How so? --Laser brain (talk) 19:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"But he also had many notable defenders, chief among them the novelist Doris Lessing." While this is possibly a slightly old-fashioned sentence construction, it is not ungrammatical. Ricardiana (talk) 18:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps not ungrammatical, but certainly ungainly and a loose sentence. It's changed anyway, so I guess it's a moot point. --Laser brain (talk) 19:33, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the feedback.
  1. The "mid 1950s" was a good catch -- another editor slipped that in and I never noticed.
  2. publishing x2 -- revised
  3. "Most seminal work" is okay -- here are half a dozen matches from Oxford University Press [2], plus several hundred general matches in google books [3]
  4. I had used British spelling throughout, but with -ize- in verbs like "organize". This is an accepted secondary form in British English. However, I have now standardised everything to -ise-. If there is anything else, please advise.
  5. "came in for particular scrutiny" is okay – perhaps we are divided by a common language. ;) Matches in google books: [4]
  6. "chief among them" is okay, see [5][6]
  7. I am not sure I agree that when we describe the content of a book published nearly 50 years ago, and its reception at the time, that we have to do so in the present tense. Cf. [7] Could you give me some more background, or a link to some style guides?
I'll have another look over the text to make things smoother where needed. Mattisse (talk · contribs) has been over it twice, though, once just recently, and judged the prose "very good" at the GA. The text hasn't changed much since then, though like I said, there have been some edits to the lede. Do let me know if anything else sticks out. Cheers, Jayen466 19:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pesky Google Books, always proving me wrong. As for the tense, it may be a subjective matter. If consensus is that past tense is okay, I'll drop it. I am of the opinion that written material exists in perpetual present tense. If I pick up a copy of his book today, it "chronicles". --Laser brain (talk) 19:55, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ricardiana changed the tense in that sentence, and actually, looking at it now, it is an improvement. Jayen466 19:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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