Wikipedia:Peer review/Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties/archive1

Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties
This peer review discussion has been closed.

Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties is a WP:GA article about freedom of speech and censorship related to use of the word "fuck" in society.

This peer review comes after a recent successful quality improvement project which brought the article Fuck (film) to WP:FA.

I'd appreciate any help to further along the quality improvement process for this related article.

Thank you for your time,

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 00:59, 26 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Notified: User talk:Imzadi1979, User talk:Piotrus, User talk:Red Phoenix, User talk:Rejectwater, User talk:John, User talk:Indopug, User talk:Quadell, User talk:GermanJoe, User talk:Jimfbleak, User talk:Wehwalt, User talk:Gen. Quon, User talk:Taylor Trescott, User talk:Lugnuts, User talk:Diannaa, User talk:Baffle gab1978, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States Public Policy, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United States, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sociology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Popular Culture, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Media, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Literature, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Human rights, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Books, Talk:Fuck, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Freedom of speech, User talk:Cirt.
 * Note: Above users' talk pages notified, as these individuals had participated in previous levels of quality improvement and/or review at this article and/or Fuck (film), an article on a related topic. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Update: Notified due to interests in topics of law and legal history. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 02:33, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments by Piotrus
Nice job. The only comment I'd have is that see also is a bit long, suggesting there's scope to integrate few concepts into the text. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:40, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you,, I'll look into that and note back here afterwards. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 13:58, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, I've gone ahead and trimmed a few from the See also sect. Cheers, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 14:25, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments by Wehwalt

 * Good job.
 * Lede
 * "After initial difficulty with publication including a rejection by the Kansas Law Review 25 minutes after submission," I would cast this more actively, "Fairman had trouble finding a publisher for the article; it was rejected by the …" or similar.
 * The various dates of publication of book, article, and paper (for so you tell us) make for some confusion. Can you look over this passage and see if it can be improved?
 * "The book was positively reviewed by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, which concluded, "Highly recommended. All readership levels."[1] " None of this is making the reader sit up and take notice. Suggest delete this sentence (also possibly the Horn Book Review, as a bit obscure).
 * "Employed as a professor at" It strikes me that the first two words could be deleted without any loss of meaning. I gather he's a lawyer. This should probably be specified, and perhaps where he went to law school.  It helps establish his professional qualifications.
 * "His supervisors at Ohio State University" I would delete or shorten "at Ohio State University". It's understood.  Also, the reader's attention should be drawn to the connection between this sentence and the one preceding, with some such word or phrase as "Nevertheless"
 * Why is it considered a 2006 article? Aren't articles conventionally dated by their publication?
 * "finally published". I'm not sure the "finally" is justified.  After all, an article written one year might have to be published the next just due to the turn of the calendar.  And even if that's not the reason, a year is not that long (cue the starving authors thrusting their bedraggled manuscripts)
 * Content etc.
 * A couple of choice examples of chapter titles would be good, I think.
 * fuck have connotations separate from its meaning of" perhaps "distinct" for "separate". Be nice if you could toss in some form of the word "denotation" near "meaning".
 * "court decisions related to its use have contradicted each other" this can be more succinctly stated, especially the part about "related to its use" which should be understood.
 * Publication etc.
 * You state in the lede that the book is an expansion of the article. You don't seem to state this anywhere in the body.
 * If the article was published online, wouldn't that make it more difficult to publish in a law school review as it is no longer "original"? I don't think you're being fair to the reader at the end of "Background", if there are plausible alternative grounds for not publishing. You are clearly implying that they did not publish because of the title or subject matter. If you are presenting events in 2006 and 2007 as "Background", you can't leave out a material fact (publication on the network) that happened before a material fact you do present (the rejection by law reviews").
 * Reception
 * "of his prior article of the same title." We know all about the article. Shorten to "of the article"
 * "censorship of the word and advocated continued use of the term" I think you need to specify what word. Also, instead of "the term", I would say "it".
 * "and warned that curbing" One "and" too many.
 * "Impact" The "impact" seems to be that the author has done pretty well out of it. That's good for him, but it affects no one else, so where's the impact?--Wehwalt (talk) 10:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Reply: Thanks very much, will respond to above soon. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:33, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Reply: Thanks very much, will respond to above soon. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:33, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

&mdash; Cirt (talk) 21:22, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Response to comments by Wehwalt
 * 1) Done. Used proposed wording.
 * 2) Done. Reworked this passage
 * 3) Comment: Per WP:LEAD, we should retain this info in order for the lede sect to function as a standalone summary of the entire article's contents.
 * 4) Done. Added more info as requested.
 * 5) Done. Shortened wording as suggested and modified to include "nevertheless".
 * 6) Done. Fixed wording about year of article.
 * 7) Done. Removed word "finally" before "published".
 * 8) Done. Fixed wording as suggested.
 * 9) Done. Made this a bit more concise.
 * 10) Done. Modified wording in lede accordingly.
 * 11) Done. Merged Publication history sect into Background sect, and ordered all material in it chronologically.
 * 12) Done. Shortened phrasing.
 * 13) Done. Specified the word. Changed to "it".
 * 14) Done. Split into two sentences.
 * 15) Comment: I suppose I could merge this sect into Reception sect, and trim out the stuff about the "retard" issues that doesn't discuss "fuck" itself. Thoughts,, on that idea?
 * I think it could be trimmed. It's not related, except in a backhanded sort of way.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:19, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. I've gone ahead and trimmed the Impact sect down, and then merged the remainder into the Reception sect. Look better now, ? &mdash; Cirt (talk) 00:24, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I suppose. With respect to the review, I would say "simply formats for the author to repeatedly utilize the word 'fuck',".  More impact.  Aside from that it looks pretty good, keeping in mind I don't know the subject matter.--Wehwalt (talk) 06:23, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. And thanks very much for your kind words about the article,, most appreciated. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 06:45, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Comments by Jimfbleak
Comments from Jim Prose is fine, just some thoughts:
 * social science, psychoanalysis, linguistics, lexicography and etymology&mdash;links?
 * The article is 74 pages long.[12] The word fuck is used over 560 times in the article. &mdash;combine these sections
 * Anything on sales?
 * The title virtually guarantees parochialism. Did it have any reception, sales or influence beyond the US?

 Jimfbleak -  talk to me?  16:53, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you,, for your helpful comments in this peer review, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 17:48, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Response to comments by Jimfbleak
 * 1) Thank you for your analysis that the prose is good.
 * 2) Done. Linked these terms.
 * 3) Done. Combined these sentences.
 * 4) I didn't come across any info on sales figures during my research.
 * 5) Unfortunately I didn't find info on that angle, though I did my best to try to find a full scope of source coverage.

Comments by Curly Turkey

 * Alt text for the images would be nice
 * filling in the "Media type" and "pages" fields in the infobox is one of my pet peeves—information that will almost ineveitably change from edition to edition—and lo and behold the body mentions a Kindle version as well (and there appears to be an .epub version as well)
 * Is "Fuck", Cardozo Law Review (2007) a previous item in a series? "preceded_by" and "followed_by" are only to be used for series (such as volumes in the Harry Potter series).  I'm not sure a "follow-up" counts.
 * "is a book written": might want to specify "nonfiction"
 * "on the article "Fuck" written by the author.": I'd make that "an article", and drop "written" as redundant
 * "from academics in the fields of" (in the lead, and later in the body): you could safely drop "the fields of"
 * "usage of fuck have" (lead and body): either "usages" or "has"
 * "connotations completely distinct": you could safely drop "completely"
 * "Fairman wrote his article": it's not immediately clear which article we're talking about at this point—I'd specify
 * "Fairman's paper received favorable reception from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Horn Book Magazine. The book was positively reviewed by Publishers Weekly,  Library Journal"  For the lead, I don't think it's necessary to specify which publications gave it a good reception, unless there's a surprising reason for it
 * "in their office in Dallas, Texas": Since we know we're in Texas already, I'd pipe & drop the ", Texas"
 * "He focused his research into": I'm not used to this wording—is it common parlance to "focus research into" something?
 * "He earned a reputation": I might combine this with the previous sentence (", and earned ...")
 * "Fairman's research into "fuck" was motivated after learning": "research" is inanimate, so can't really be motivated. Something like: "Fairman was motivated to do reasearch on "fuck" after  ..."?
 * "who utilized the word": or just "used"?
 * "man who utilized the word in an email to a judge in 2004 and was subsequently arrested": to make it crystal clear that the arrest was due to the man's language, how about: "who was arrested for using the word in an email to a judge in 2004"?
 * "Government spending" or "Government funding"?
 * "He updated his article", "He discusses the efforts": not a fan of paragraphs that begin with a pronoun
 * "updated his article with a follow-up piece": are "update" and "follow-up" not redundant here?
 * "in paperback format by": you can safely drop "format"
 * "these acts are diametrically opposed": you could safely drop "diametrically"
 * "Writing for Library Journal, Marianne Orme": who's Marianne Orme?
 * "a higher quality than The Complete Motherfucker: A History of the Mother of all Dirty Words by Jim Dawson": when did this book come out? Before Fairman's book?  At the same time?
 * "its forum on "Word Taboos" in 2010": if "Word Taboos" is the name of the forum rather than just its topic, then "on 'Word Taboos'" would be a forum on the forum—a metaforum! Drop the "on".
 * rather than, might I suggest div col and a specified column width? A hard number of columns results in a lot of white space on wide screens, and on small or vertical screens, one column likely will be pushed offscreen.  A specified column width allows the browser to choose an appropriate number of columns to fit the screen.
 * "Further reading" is normally about the subject of the article, rather than the subject of the subject of the article. Since none of these books are about Fairman's book, I'd drop the entire section.

———Curly Turkey (gobble) 00:37, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay, thank you, I will get on responding to these soon, and note back here when addressed. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 01:22, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. Thank you,, I agreed with all of these suggestions and so I've implemented all of them directly into the article. Thanks again for your helpful recommendations, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 02:54, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks solid to me. I'd probably left-align the photo of Fairman, though,  so it doesn't bump into the infobox. Curly Turkey (gobble) 04:42, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Done. Aligned that image left. Thanks,, it looks better that way. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 05:30, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hmmm ... I might play around with its placement a bit to avoid sandwiching with the infobox. Curly Turkey (gobble) 05:34, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Looks better,, thank you! &mdash; Cirt (talk) 08:53, 5 February 2014 (UTC)