Template:Did you know nominations/Kilometer 101

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 12:58, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

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Kilometer 101

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Maxim Osipov, author of Kilometer 101, in 2014
Maxim Osipov, author of Kilometer 101, in 2014

Moved to mainspace by Daniel-Thater (talk). Nominated by MyCatIsAChonk (talk) at 02:56, 16 February 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Kilometer 101; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

  • The book sounds interesting, but parts of this article are really unclear. In the lede it is called a full-length essay collection and a nonfiction book, but then it says it also contains short fiction. Better would be to say in the first sentence that it is a collection that contains both nonfiction essays and short story fiction. Then the structure isn't clear – is all of Part 1 fiction and all of Part 2 essays, with one essay at the very beginning before the two parts? I think so, but that should be stated explicitly. Then the tone in the "Synopsis" section is more than a bit off for Wikipedia. It's both too informal (especially in the contractions) and too interpretative (as two of many examples, by focusing on interiority, Osipov’s narratives resolve within the characters themselves. and Despite all of this, Osipov reaches a tenuous depiction of Russian culture and identity). Indeed, things that read like this often turn out to be copyvio issues. I'm not saying that's the case here, but it's an indication that a rewrite, or quoting/citing to interpretative sources, is called for. Finally, the article should be added to categories such as Category:Russian short story collections and Category:2020s essays and possibly others. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
    • @Wasted Time R: Thank you for your review; I've overhauled the article and added citations to the more interpretive pats of "Content and themes" as well as addressed the confusion surrounding what type of book it is. MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 00:08, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
      • @Wasted Time R: Is there anything else you'd like me to do? MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 00:49, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
        • Sorry, I saw your response a few days ago and then lost track of it. The article is better structured now, but I am still confused about the part titles – the lede says the parts are called "Stories" and "Essays" but the content and themes section says they are called "Luxemburg" and "Kilometer 101" – which is it? And the background section talks about "the fictional essays" which sounds like an oxymoron, which part is that referring to? Wasted Time R (talk) 01:07, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Just a comment, but the hook says 2020 when it seems like 2022 is more accurate. BuySomeApples (talk) 08:44, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
Oh, that must've been a typo, thanks for clarifying that. MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 17:23, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
@MyCatIsAChonk: Sorry about another delay. But I have concerns about text-source correspondence with the article as it stands. I will give two examples though I strongly suspect there are more. The entire paragraph about "Sventa" is cited to the Polly Jones TLS piece. Yet that review never mentions that it's written in the second person and presents a different interpretation ("fruitless quest") about the conclusion of the essay. Later, the Maria Lipman Foreign Affairs review is said to say the book concerns "a doctor fighting a losing battle in a provincial Russian town that doesn’t prioritize health." But Lipman's review, while it does mention alcohol, doesn't say that. (I did see it in one of the other sources, don't recall where now.) So I think you need to go through line by line in this article, with all the sources open, and make sure that the citing in the article correctly maps to which sources support what. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:48, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
@Wasted Time R: Thanks for getting back to me. For the issue in "Reception", I cut that statement. Secondly, in "Content and themes", I find it difficult to distinguish what complies with MOS:PLOT and what doesn't. I've gone through this like you said, but there are some statements that aren't cited as I believe they comply with plot summary guidelines. Do you feel they're ok now? MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 14:13, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
@MyCatIsAChonk: Well, what's there now in the "Content and themes" section is a mixture of uncited PLOT and cited observations. Unorthodox, but maybe it is okay. Separately, I have done a bunch of copyedits to the article for clarity and MoS conformance and citing at the beginning. However I see there are a couple of issues with the hook, besides the year correction that was already made. First, it is not an essay collection, as it has short stories also, so the hook should just say 'collection'. Second, is there any source that says it was compiled after the Russian invasion? It was published after the invasion, yes, but given normal publisher timelines, I would guess that the volume may have already been in the works before February 2022. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:49, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
@Wasted Time R: Thanks for the copyediting. I think it's ok to call it an essay collection. Merriam-Webster describes an essay as "an analytic or interpretative literary composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited or personal point of view". Since the short stories are based on Osipov's experiences, I personally believe it fits the description. On the compilation, I'm not sure- none of the sources specifically state that, so I do see a problem too. Here's an ALT proposal, just replacing "compiled" with "published":
ALT1: ... that the 2022 essay collection Kilometer 101 was published shortly after the author fled Russia due to the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War?
Thoughts? MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 16:44, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
@MyCatIsAChonk: I'm not trying to be difficult, but essays are non-fiction and short stories are fiction and they really are two different things. See for example this from Palomar College or this from Writer's Digest. And wording that indicates the collection contains both essays and stories would actually make for a more compelling hook. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:52, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
@Wasted Time R: Ok, thank you for clarifying that. How about these:
ALT2: ... that the 2022 essay and short story collection Kilometer 101 was published shortly after the author fled Russia due to the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War?
ALT3: ... that Maxim Osipov's Kilometer 101 contains both personal essays about Osipov's time in provincial Russia and short stories based on these experiences?
MyCatIsAChonk (talk) 23:29, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
Okay, this is good to go with either ALT2 or ALT3, the DYK promoter can decide which fits best with whatever's going up in that set. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:25, 11 March 2023 (UTC)
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