Talk:The Wiccan Web/GA1

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Reviewer: Epicgenius (talk · contribs) 00:47, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi vat, I'm taking this.

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

Prose, POV, and coverage

Lead:

• Para 1: by Patricia Telesco and Sirona Knight published by Citadel Press, an imprint of Kensington Publishing. - It is somewhat strange to read "book by ... published by..." in such close proximity. I feel this is because this might be missing a word, e.g. "book written by Patricia Telesco and Sirona Knight and published by Citadel Press, an imprint of Kensington Publishing." (but then we have the construction "Patricia Telesco and Sirona Knight and published by", which is an issue in itself).
  • I think the current wording is fine -- it's what I've used elsewhere (e.g. The Neanderthals Rediscovered and Occult America), and I'm inclined to agree the "and...and" version is a bit more clunky. Vaticidalprophet 15:55, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    That is true, which is why I'm not suggesting any specific wording (this was merely intended as food for thought). – Epicgenius (talk) 16:47, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• I really don't have any other substantive comments. It's short but also well-written and summarizes the article quite well.

Synopsis:

• Para 2: This section of the book received criticism; a Wiccan reviewer felt the spells sounded "hokey" and compared their ritual chants to "high-school cheers", while a secular reviewer felt elements of some rituals, such as rubbing tinctures on a computer screen, were bizarre. - This sounds like something that belongs in the reception section, but I can see why this is mentioned here.
• Para 3: The next section of The Wiccan Web - By the way, are sections the same as chapters, or does each section consist of multiple chapters? Are these chapters being described in the order in which they appear in the book (e.g. in the book, does the content in paragraph 2 come before paragraph 3)?
  • This should really have been rendered as "chapters" -- the book doesn't have subsectioning that way -- so I've swapped it out. It's described chronologically, though. Vaticidalprophet 15:55, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Publication and reception:

• I noticed that Knight is red-linked in the lead, but not in paragraph 1 of this section.
  • I don't generally duplicate redlinks -- they're a heads-up about a potentially missing article, but not a navigational aid, so duplinking doesn't aid navigation. If an article gets written, I'll relink. Vaticidalprophet 15:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Para 1: The book was agented by Lisa Hagan - I must admit that I've never seen the word "agent" used as a verb in this way, but I'll chalk this up to ENGVAR.
  • It's a literary term-of-art, but yeah (see Dark Archives#Publication and reception for another use). Do you think it might be worth piping to an article on literary agents? It does occur to me now it's a bit of an odd phrasing in the abstract. Vaticidalprophet 15:55, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    Yes, that would be helpful. – Epicgenius (talk) 16:48, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

    Done. Vaticidalprophet 17:07, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Is there any other information on the publication process itself (e.g. when they started writing the book, why they decided to write it. etc.), or anything else such as sales info?
  • Book sales numbers tend to be very sad, especially for small presses like this, so not widely reported. I'll check quickly if there's anything on why it was written, though may not be. Vaticidalprophet 15:55, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not getting a ton here, unfortunately. The book doesn't have a relevant preface or anything. I poked around to figure out if Telesco did any relevant interviews, but if so they're not accessible -- the early 2000s is a deadzone for research, because it's late enough that you feel like things "should" be digitized but early enough they often aren't. As you might expect, newspapers.com and other mainstream sources are unhelpful. What's in the article seems to be as much as exists. Vaticidalprophet 20:41, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

      That is a shame, but I can understand why there's little coverage of this book. I will probably be able to finish up the review by tomorrow. – Epicgenius (talk) 21:06, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

      Epicgenius, just a friendly reminder. Vaticidalprophet 03:11, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

      Sorry, I've been swamped with work over the last 2 days. Will spot-check the sources and check image/copyright issues within the next 24 hours. – Epicgenius (talk) 03:20, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

– Epicgenius (talk) 15:30, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

No formatting issues.

Due to the low number of references, I will spot-check all online references from this version.

• 1 (Fisher, Barbara (2002). "Book Reviews: The Wiccan Web: Surfing the Magic On The Internet". newWitch.) - Everything verified. The part a secular reviewer felt elements of some rituals, such as rubbing tinctures on a computer screen, were bizarre. is supported by ref 2, though, while ref 1 only supports a Wiccan reviewer felt the spells sounded "hokey" and compared their ritual chants to "high-school cheers". So this checks out.
• 2 (Thorpe, David (13 March 2012). "The Wiccan Web". Something Awful.) - Verified, with the caveat above.
• 7 ("About Our Imprints & Publishing Partners". Kensington Publishing. 2023.) - Verifies the text Citadel Press, an imprint of Kensington Publishing but not much else. I'm assuming good faith that the other sources support the rest of the sentence.
• 9 (Hagan, Lisa (2023). "About Us". Lisa Hagan.) - I don't see where Paraview Literary Agency, or anything else in the sentence, is mentioned. What is this supposed to verify?

@Vaticidalprophet: There is one issue above with ref 9. I will assume good faith on the print sources, so everything should be good to go after the issue regarding ref 9 is resolved. Epicgenius (talk) 14:55, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

​Hagan's affiliation with Paraview is reported in the book itself, cite 8 (We would also like to thank Sirona’s agent, Lisa Hagan at Paraview, for her support, integrity, and friendship). The additional ref is supporting what sort of books she focuses on (Lisa has seen that there is an audience and a demand for the books that she loves – but is not limited to – genres such as alternative health, paranormal research and extraordinary memoirs). Vaticidalprophet 18:11, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. – Epicgenius (talk) 18:13, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Images and copyright

• The sole image has an appropriate fair-use rationale.
• Copyvio check reveals only quotes and proper names.

– Epicgenius (talk) 14:10, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]