Talk:Mounseer Nongtongpaw

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

	Mounseer Nongtongpaw has been listed as one of the Language and literature good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
May 21, 2008 Good article nominee Listed

	Mounseer Nongtongpaw is part of WikiProject Poetry, a WikiProject related to Poetry.
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale.
Low	This article has been rated as low-importance on the importance scale.

[edit] Note to GA reviewer

Very little has been written on Nongtongpaw. The attribution debate is the most important thing about it. Awadewit (talk) 15:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA Pass

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

---

Although this article is pretty short, I believe it is as comprehensive as possible given the currently available resources. It does a good job of discussing the authorship controversy, and provides excellent citations to reliable sources. It even has two pictures, which shows an admirable dedication to multimedia scholarship.

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Such as they are. (I'm not expert enough to assess whether there's any other information to be had, but I suspect there is not.) I'd love to have more info on its popularity among publishers, collections it's been in, and so forth, but I expect this info is simply not available.

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

   Maybe include an image of Mary Shelley herself?

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   Nice work on this article. I expect the folks at FAC would be resistant to such a short article (even though length is not technically a requirement), but I have no suggestions on how it might be improved. Well done. – Scartol • Tok 11:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Borderline GA. While I don't think it's "bad", I am concerned that the lead section is a bit too short, and most of the other sections are bit too dependent on quotes with little text explaining their significance and relation to the topic. Also, the 'significance' section is very short, indicating possible issues with the 'broadness' criterion at WP:WIAGA. Dr. Cash (talk) 13:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that it's borderline. To be honest, I thought for a long time about whether I could pass it or not. But in the end I feel that, given the fact that it's probably only remembered for the fact that it was once attributed to Ms. Shelley, it seems (as I said above) likely that it really can't be made more comprehensive. But of course if enough people disagree we could have a GA reassess. – Scartol • Tok 15:33, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

• There are no more sources available to use for this article that say anything of significance - they all repeat what has been said here.
• As the attribution debate is so important, I quoted what the scholars themselves had to say about the issue, hence the quotes.
• The poem isn't important for any other reason than it was once thought to have been written by Mary Shelley, so I'm not sure what could be added to the "Significance" section.
• I have tried to summarize the article in the lead. Though short, I do believe that it adequately represents this short article. For expansion, it might help to point to what should be included that is not. Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 15:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

As someone who has scratched around for information about Mounseer Nongtongpaw, I would just like to say that I consider this article, slight though subject and content may be, to be outstanding. I intend to refer people to it as an example of what Wikipedia can do at its best.

The significance of this ditty is quite simple: it is a candidate for Mary Shelley's first published work. Anyone who writes about Mary Shelley must address the question of what her first work was and will therefore be obliged to address the tricky and elusive issue of Mounseer Nongtongpaw. The scholarship exists in fragments here and there, and it is quite laborious to check and reconcile, given the contradictions in opinion and evidence. This article provides the best one-stop information on Nongtongpaw anywhere. What more can a Wikipedia article do? qp10qp (talk) 15:58, 21 May 2008 (UTC)