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Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication

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This is maybe a potential FAC. Tricky one. It's "niche", which is an euphemism for "short". At 1237 words, it wouldn't be the shortest FA (indeed it'd be about twice the length of the shortest), but it'd rank amongst them. Nonetheless, I've gotten it as comprehensive as I possibly can, it's expanded about three hundred words since its recent GA pass, and I'm quite proud of it, as these things go. This is a book on a fascinating scholarly intersection (the role of the social sciences in looking for and communicating with aliens) that doesn't get much attention, which in turn itself got media attention due to the vagaries of clickbait and the desire to take lines out of context for the attention-grabbing headline that "NASA says aliens made this sculpture!". I've written as much as I can and can write on it no further; tell me how to take it further. Have pre-emptively added to the template.

Thanks, Vaticidalprophet 02:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sdkb

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Interesting topic! A few thoughts:

  • The publication history doesn't really talk about anything other than the accidental release. I think there's probably more to be said here, although whether there are any sources that say it is a separate question. A more broadly scoped publication section would discuss things like why Vakoch decided to put together the collection, how long it took, what NASA's publication process is like (I wasn't aware that it was its own publisher), etc. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • although whether there are any sources that say it is a separate question Always the tricky part, ain't it? I've managed to scrape together another paragraph on the motive for the book. NASA-as-publisher is an interesting point to me too and one I haven't been able to find much about. Vaticidalprophet 08:18, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Looks good! {{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:22, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given that there are only 17 essays, I'm a little surprised you don't just list all of them out (in a list or, better, a table) with a short summary of each. There'd be room to do that, right? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hm, this is a tricky one. The May Pamphlet is an essay collection currently at FAC that lists out the essays and got some commentary both ways. I tend to write prose more comfortably than lists, and 17 is...a fair amount. Since reading the TMP FAC, I've been thinking more seriously about whether to list the titles out, but I haven't made a hard decision either way yet. Vaticidalprophet 03:06, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sdkb, what are your thoughts on the new table? Vaticidalprophet 07:37, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        Contrary to your fears on Discord, it looks good! I think the reference column is probably unneeded, though, per WP:PLOTCITE. The descriptions might also be shortened in a few cases—it's somewhat up to your discretion how much detail to go into, but I'd skim it over and see if on reflection anything isn't as crucial for summary style as it initially seemed. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:08, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        I feel like an essay collection borders on being a serial work in a way that makes individual cites approprate by PLOTCITE's count. I'm still mulling over whether "table" is the best way to present this; possibly it could be restructured into prose with bulleted titles and page numbers? I feel tables with nontrivial prose give a bit of a wall-of-text impression. I'll see what can be trimmed and keep playing with format. Vaticidalprophet 21:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        Sdkb: After mulling over this for a few days, I've restructured the table into prose and shortened most of the descriptions (though most are probably still longer than you envisioned). I've also removed the citations, although I'm so terrified of writing uncited text I'll have to take your word for it :) I'm concerned it's still too long -- overlong plot summaries being a whole thing -- but it's kind of difficult to figure out what constitutes 'plot summary' in the context of a nonfiction essay collection. Your thoughts on that issue? Vaticidalprophet 08:13, 27 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Related to the point immediately above, there seems to be disproportionate emphasis on the intro and epilogue. The anecdote about La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1 could probably be shortened by a sentence or two if written more tightly. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given NASA and the fact Vakoch is American, this article appears to have strongest ties to the U.S., so you may encounter some questioning around e.g. "centre" for MOS:ENGVAR. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article doesn't have that many categories. Are there additional ones you could add about [subject]-books, or relating to the format, or other things? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is picky, but personally I'd format the external link at Archaeology, Anthropology, and Interstellar Communication full text from NASA. Saying "available for free download" is a little tacky and linking over the whole thing reduces clarity. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's the copyright status of the book? Government documents are generally public domain, and if that's the case, you could use a full-sized image for the cover, or even better, upload the whole thing to Commons/Wikisource that could be featured more prominently. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not sure, honestly. The book's cover (which is the sticking point here -- the book itself is more likely to be PD, but given it's already FUTON in an accessible format I don't think a Wikisource entry would be helpful) was probably made by a contractor, and I'm not sure how that interacts with PD-as-government-work -- I think for some other contexts it doesn't count as PD? (Although, to joke about it, it does look a bit like if you asked an engineer to design a book cover...) I'd want someone a lot more confident in the vagaries of image copyright than me to confirm. Vaticidalprophet 03:06, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Sounds like a question for WP:Media copyright questions then. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:00, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another, slightly more unorthodox suggestion for featuring the link more prominently: When we write about e.g. openly accessible websites, we put a wikilink to them in the navbox. Given that this is a free work, I think you could make a plausible argument that an external link to it should be in the navbox. You might have to go to the infobox to be able to do this. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • The infobox doesn't use a lot of the parameters from {{Infobox book}}. For some of these, whether they'd be WP:DUE is questionable, and I don't want to encourage WP:INFOBOXBLOAT. But your decisions here should be intentional, so if you keep it as is, be prepared for questions like "Why do you mention the book format in the lead prose but leave out |media_type= in the infobox?". {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I tend towards very short infoboxen (really I see them as a quick way to calculate the time between dates, and everything else is secondary). I'll look through the params to see if there's anything really clear I've missed. Vaticidalprophet 03:06, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another tiny personal preference nitpick: I'd title the section "Reception and cultural impact" rather than "Cultural impact and reception", since reception is the narrower thing and cultural impact flows out from that. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's lots about the critical reception, but nothing about whatever the book equivalent of box office is. Is there any publicly available information about how many times it was downloaded or purchased? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Vakoch's biography, the publisher information for this book is listed as "National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Communications, Public Outreach Division, History Program Office". Surely the division within NASA that worked on this is relevant to mention here, right? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the leak, there's no information on what this website was that published it. Was it a NASA webpage or not? Did any information ever come out about whether the leak was intentional or accidental? Related reading. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • You may get some pushback at FAC on why certain things were deemed significant enough for inclusion rather than WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I thought about whether the acknowledgements and dedication are warranted for a few moments, but on reflection, I think they are, since the acknowledgements likely reflect people who were a part of putting the book together. As for the places that have cited the book, that's more iffy. These all look like primary sources, i.e. the citations themselves are used to establish that they exist, but I have trouble imagining a secondary source (i.e. someone commenting on the fact that someone else cited the book), and that makes me doubt its importance. It might be better to just leave it at The book has been cited in several publications. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • This isn't at all related to FA-readiness, but I just gotta say, that is one moody portrait photo lol! {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That's all my comments for now. Let me know your thoughts, and best wishes as you develop this further! Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Given a few replies (mostly of the "good point, I've been thinking about this and I'm not sure how to tackle it" sort). Vaticidalprophet 03:06, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment from Buidhe

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I stalk Hog Farm's talk page and noticed that you were querying the length of the section on the book's content. I do think it's too long, and seems out of proportion of the reception and publication history sections. (t · c) buidhe 07:58, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I suspected you might comment when I posted that :) Do you see any good spots to cut? I got it about 200 words down from its peak (actually, probably closer to 400, but only counting from after the text was restructured from table to prose), but I'm starting to get lost on the rest of it. Vaticidalprophet 08:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I would axe the "Essays" section. It seems like it is mostly duplicating info elsewhere in the article. (t · c) buidhe 19:54, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Buidhe, do you mean axe everything between "Essays" and "Historical Perspectives on SETI", or axe everything under the essays section? There are a bunch of level-4 subsections, which I know aren't very visually distinct from level-3.
@Vaticidalprophet, I feel I should apologize, since I'm sorry you're getting pushed in all these different directions that don't necessarily align. I should've been clearer when I suggested above that you list out the essays that what I had in mind was only a very short sentence or two summary for each; that might've saved you from having to delete so much of what you wrote now. This is something I've noticed can happen with FAs in areas with few/no precedents, but the consolation is that if you manage to get it passed anyways, you've set the standard and trailblazed for others. Best, {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I meant the stuff just under "Essays" where it lists the stuff in the table of contents. Since the titles and names of authors are mentioned again later on, this part seems like duplication of the rest of the article (and the book's table of contents) (t · c) buidhe 21:04, 28 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Buidhe (cc Hog Farm per comments on his talk), I've restructured the table-of-contents section, although I should probably go through and check the names a bit more (I mostly copied over the full names, but some were already used in full, so will need to double-check which and trim those). Sdkb, I'm not too worried about the going-back-and-forth -- it happens naturally at this stage in an article's development. The descriptions are already fairly short; one issue I'm wondering about is the fact there's inherently a high floor on their length in raw word count given the long titles and names involved, so I'm trying to figure out where to trim best after accounting for that. Vaticidalprophet 02:18, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Buidhe and Hog Farm, I've tried...a bit further. It's still long, although it is, at least, less than half the article now. Each individual section is pretty short. I'm not sure where to go from here. Vaticidalprophet 03:42, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The length has definitely been improved. With the topic, (volume of essays) it's certainly difficult to cover concisely, and IMO there should be more leeway with non-fiction books to cover the synopsis in greater length. I wouldn't be opposing the article at FAC :) (t · c) buidhe 03:45, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I likewise wouldn't oppose at FAC over length, which I think has definitely improved. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have time for a more detailed review on this for awhile, it's a fairly busy week at work and I might be in over my head with CSS Baltic. Hog Farm Talk 05:37, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Vami

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Interesting. –♠Vami_IV†♠ 22:29, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • [...] are applicable to those of studying potential societies outside Earth. "outside" sounds off here but thinking of a better word has been a chore thus far.
  • I have yet to work on articles about books/games/movies, but text without inline citations makes me uncomfortable.
  • [...] has been interested in interstellar communication for many years. One wonders how well this prose will age.
  • Some of these articles noted that the statement was not representative of the essay's content,[15] while others did not.[16] Rearrange; sounds redundant/contradictory (like "some of these articles noted that the statement was not representative of the essay's content while others also didn't.")
  • Vakoch explicated the book's purpose further [...] Would "explain" not work better in place of "explicate"?
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