Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Infinity Science Fiction/archive1

Infinity Science Fiction

 * Nominator(s): Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

This article is about another minor science fiction magazine of the late 1950s. Its main claim to fame is for publishing Arthur Clarke's story "The Star", which was rejected by The Saturday Evening Post as blasphemous, but which went on to win that year's Hugo Award and is now considered a classic. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Source review

 * "The Star" is one of my favorite SF stories. All sources appear encyclopedic and properly and consistently used except as follows:
 * There are at least three different formats for ISBNs.
 * Gateways to Forever only lists a 13-digit ISBN, and some of the others only list a 10-digit one. If there's a way to look up a 10-digit one from a 13-digit one I could do that but I don't know of a way.  For the McAleer, I used the ISBN on the ebook I found online, which doesn't divide it, but I just found a cheap used copy online and will update the ISBN when it arrives. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 00:18, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Westport, CT or Westport, Connecticut?
 * Fixed. I keep copying over references from old articles and forgetting to fix them; I need to just go through and fix all of them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 00:18, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Why are the dates in day month year format in an American English article?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Because I'm mid-Atlantic and can't remember which is which. Fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 00:18, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Image review
 * Suggest adding alt text. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:51, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Support Comments from Ian
Recusing from coord duties to review... Copyedited as usual, but pretty light -- some outstanding points: Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:37, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The Steins also launched Suspect Detective Stories, a crime magazine, the same month, and gave it to Shaw to edit, but converted it to science fiction after five issues, retitling it Science Fiction Adventures. -- this reads as the Steins converting it to sf, rather than Shaw, which is fine but can I just confirm that is in fact what's meant?
 * Yes, that's the intent. I could make it "the Steins converted", if that would be clearer.  In fact Ashley says "Stein", since I think Helen Stein was much less involved than Irwin; after initially making it clear that it was the two of them that started Royal, he mostly says "Stein" rather than "the Steins". Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:47, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * That's fine, the fact that it took me two reads of the sentence to be sure doesn't necessarily mean the fault is with the sentence... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:28, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The title page of the first anthology, Infinity One, said that it was "a magazine of speculative fiction in book form", but other than some brief introductory material, all five volumes printed nothing but fiction. -- maybe I'm missing something but is it surprising that "a magazine of speculative fiction" would print "nothing but fiction"?
 * The quote from Ashley is "Such were Infinity's claims to be a magazine in book form. Unlike the later Destinies, however, Infinity concentrated solely on fiction and carried none of the features traditionally associated wtih magazines such as review columns, nonfiction departments and editiorials."  I've changed this a little; see if that works better. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:47, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Got it -- yes the tweaking helps explain it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:28, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * For the "assessments of Infinity paragraph, I see you removed some of the connective tissue between the opinions -- I'm curious to know why? I do that sometimes just for flow, to carry the reader from one opinion to the next without reducing it to a staccato list of opinions. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:47, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, in this case it wasn't just my habitual trimming of (what appear to me) excess words but because connecting the info from the different sources in that way seemed like editorialising... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:28, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * OK -- I didn't see it like that but I'm happy to leave it that way. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:42, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Tks Mike. I'll take Nikki's image review as read and I think between Wehwalt, Sandy and myself we've established that the sources are reliable, so happy to support. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:42, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:17, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

SG review (Support)
I will review this next ... on my ToDo list. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  21:29, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * ISFDB looks like a wiki ? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  00:33, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a wiki with editing oversight. There's an RSN discussion here, which refers to a couple of previous posts by me to try to get a ruling.  See here, for example; the SFE3 (the source you list below) regards them both as highly reliable, which I think is strong positive evidence (not for biographical information, though, just for bibliographic data).  I mostly use the ISFDB for convenience instead of citing the individual issues of the magazines, which is a lot harder for a reader to find and use to validate the citation. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 01:57, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Encyclopedia of Science Fiction looks like a Wiki ? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  00:36, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * No, it's editorially controlled. It's the online version of a print encyclopedia that was last physically printed in 1992. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 01:57, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Mike ... will continue review tomorrow. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  01:58, 13 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Support, after a few minor tweaks. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:11, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review and support -- and the tweaks look good. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:37, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Coord note
I've added this to the urgents list to hopefully scare up a bit more reviews. --Ealdgyth (talk) 14:05, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Support but with some suggestions for improvement... Nikkimaria (talk) 18:36, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * United States link doesn't need to be there
 * Removed; that's been there since 2006, and I never noticed it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:15, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * "a planet destroyed by a nova that turns out to have been the Star of Bethlehem" - if someone doesn't know what a nova is, this is a bit ambiguous in its phrasing. Suggest reworking
 * I added "(an exploding star)" to the lead, but am hesitant to do more than that for fear of overwhelming a short lead. In the body I've made it "a planet destroyed by a nova (an exploding star): the light from the nova was seen from earth as the Star of Bethlehem". Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:15, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * When Shaw was originally hired (before the hot-rod), what was his role?
 * Editor; I've reworded. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:15, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * "To save money over the last two issues Stein made a deal to acquire some lower-priced material" - what is "lower-priced"? What prices were paid previously? What was standard at the time?
 * Ashley doesn't say. I know from various sources that a typical low-paying market would have been around one to one and a half cents per word, and a high-paying market around three or four cents.  Stein probably paid between one and two cents for most stories.  Getting low-priced material could be done a couple of ways; it's likely that Stein contacted one of the agencies, such as Scott Meredith, and let them know he would take material that had been rejected elsewhere, on condition the rate was low.  This is speculation, though, and I don't see how I can put anything in the article. Even a "typical rate" (which I'm not sure would be easy to source) might be misleading because I don't know if Stein paid a typical rate; Ashley doesn't comment. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:15, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * earth -> Earth.
 * Done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:15, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review and support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:15, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Support Short, and tagged (incorrectly) as a stub, but looks good to me. I have no comments. Hawkeye7  (discuss)  01:46, 8 August 2020 (UTC)