Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Great Gatsby/archive1

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 User:Maralia 16:19, 15 December 2008 [1].

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The Great Gatsby

Nominator(s): Saberwolf116 (talk)

I'm nominating this article for featured article because it's a very clssic novel, and has cited sources as well as good plot and reception summaries. Literature classic that should be featured. Saberwolf116 (talk) 05:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think this one is quite ready for FAC yet. Needs more on historical background/context, Fitzgerald's style, the novel's themes, and especially its legacy. I've done some clean-up work on this article to start laying a foundation, but think it needs more work at this point. I have many of the sources to make a go, but would need several weeks to work on it. Love to come back in January and do that. --JayHenry (talk) 05:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Hmm, well I think that the main idea of novel articles is to include a good summary, recpetion, and style, isn't it? The reason I chose it is because the plot does not specify to greatly, and it has all good sources. I think if we let it be featured, it will also bring in a lot of editors who would love to contribute.Saberwolf116 (talk) 05:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  Yeah, that's the main idea, but right now the summary is not actually that great and the reception section is very short. There's no style section at all. Take a look at To Kill a Mockingbird, another Featured Article on a great American novel, and look at how detailed the sections on style and themes are. We'd have to do a lot of work yet--maybe a month or two--before The Great Gatsby article is up to "FA standards" for a novel that's this important. --JayHenry (talk) 05:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - There are 598 hits for "Great Gatsby" in the MLA database - have you consulted this database? This is the most important collection of secondary citations on literature. The fact that so much other research exists suggests that this article is based on a very small subset of the available material. As for the article, the plot summary is too long; the list of characters is unnecessary; there is no "themes" section (themes are the "meat" of any novel); there is no "style" section (this is crucial since Fitzgerald's writing style is so distinctive and is part of what makes this novel so important in literary history). I would suggest looking at some of the recently-promoted novel FAs. This article will require several months of work to get to FA (I would actually speculate something like a year, since it is one of those classic novels on which much has been written). I would suggest withdrawing this nomination and starting to compile a lengthy bibliography from which to expand the article. Awadewit (talk) 06:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Note Edit count shows that Saberwolf has not edited the article. Have you consulted the major contributors about nominating this? Getting an article to featured status (i.e. the best of what Wikipedia has to offer) takes an incredible amount of work – research, synthesis, writing, copyediting, etc. Take a look at some of our current featured articles, and you'll see a rather large difference between them and The Great Gatsby. I'd suggest withdrawing this article from nomination. BuddingJournalist 06:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose I find this nomination particularly disturbing. It is not sitting well with me.Manhattan Samurai (talk) 06:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't see what's particularly disturbing about it. Just seems like a young user who is not familiar with the featured article process. BuddingJournalist 07:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been withdrawn, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{FAC}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Maralia (talk) 16:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.