- 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 SonOfYoutubers talk 01:06, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
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Vera, or Faith
- ... that in the novel Vera, or Faith there is a proposed constitutional amendment for an enhanced ballot that counts as five-thirds of a regular vote for so-called "exceptional Americans"?
- ALT1: ... that in the novel Vera, or Faith the family owns a self-driving car called Stella and an AI chessboard named Kaspie? Source: Winik, Marion. "Review: Get ready to fall in love with the title character of 'Vera, or Faith'". Minnesota Star Tribune. Retrieved July 9, 2025. .
- Reviewed:
- Comment: Changed my mind. If possible, I would like this nomination to proceed. Sorry about that.
Created by Steve Quinn (talk).
Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has fewer than 5 past nominations.
Steve Quinn (talk) 21:14, 13 July 2025 (UTC).
Thanks for creating this interesting new article. I want to disclose that you and I talked on my user talk page about me reviewing this nomination, but I'm coming at it uninvolved. There are going to need to be some changes, but I'm quite sure that this nomination can eventually be appropriate for DYK. The page is new enough and long enough, and it satisfies NPOV and other relevant policies. The topic is notable, and is reliably sourced. It's clean according to the AI detector, and Earwig finds no copyvios (only direct quotes, attributed, from reviews of the book). Here are some issues that I'd like to see addressed:
- I feel like the page should get a basic top-to-bottom copyedit for formatting and writing. If you'd like me to, I can do that myself, or you can ask WP:GOCE or someone else.
- Paragraph 3 of the plot summary refers to Yumi, who isn't mentioned before. Who is that?
- The Dwight Garner paragraph in the section about the father has a quote mark, but there's no quote mark at the beginning of the quote, so I can't tell where the quote starts.
- I'm going to have to reject both proposed hooks (ALT0 and ALT1), because of WP:DYKFICTION. We need a new hook, not based upon fictional plot points. I can suggest two here, but you should feel free to come up with others:
- ALT2: ... that the novel Vera, or Faith was described by a reviewer as "probably the most endearing book about anxiety ever written"?
- ALT3: ... that Gary Shteyngart's novel Vera, or Faith was described by a reviewer as "one of [his] darkest works"?
- --Tryptofish (talk) 20:29, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding the top-to-bottom copy edit and formatting and writing, my opinion is that you are probably the best person to do this. First, you have an idea of what you want done. Second, I have no idea how long WP:GOCE will take to start working on this article.
- Yumi is a minor character who is Vera's teammate during the fifth grade debate, and possible friend. I will have to see if the reliable sources say more about her. If not, then we can just forget putting Yumi in the article. Yumi is meant to represent someone that 10-year-old Vera wishes to impress and make friends with.
- I will fix the Dwight Garner quote. Thanks for pointing that out. Update: This is a paraphrased sentence, based on the Dwight Garner source. So, no quotation marks are needed and I removed the one you saw there.
- So, I like both hooks that you have come up with, and I can see the possibility of going with one of these. I will look through the article again and see if I can come up with a real-world hook as well. Maybe, maybe not. Well, I guess that is it for now. Let's keep communicating about this process. Regards, ---Steve Quinn (talk) 23:43, 17 July 2025 (UTC)
- Update - see # 3 - I fixed the Dwight Garner problem ---Steve Quinn (talk) 00:12, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
- I've completed the copyedit. Please correct anything that I might have gotten wrong.
- In the plot summary section, I left a "further explanation needed" tag where it says "a derided college". It would be interesting to know derided by whom and/or why? (Alternatively, you could just omit it, and just say "met in college", but this strikes me as potentially something interesting about the fictional near-future US.)
- In the reception section, I added quote marks in the part about Carol Aucoin's review. It sounds to me like that was a direct quote, but please check if I did that correctly.
- From my perspective, we are most of the way there. Pending any other changes you would like to make, and pending what you think about a hook, I don't notice anything else. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:44, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding the "further explanation tag, I changed the sentence to "She only knows that her parents met at a college in the state of Ohio, which her father sarcastically derides in Vera's presence as "the College of Fading Repute." and I added to relevant references to this: <:ref name=Winik/><:ref name=Arieff/>
- This is actually paraphrasing and not a quote. I will try to parse this for you.
- I wrote: "consists of satire and sadness." In the WBUR article, the author wrote: " written with his distinctive blend of buoyant satire and bruise-your-heart poignancy.
- I wrote: "He creates beautiful phrases that are enjoyable and show how adult language can be confusing for children." The author wrote: "Because Shteyngart lands one beautifully crafted phrase after another, you’re both entertained by and made very aware of how mysterious adult argot can be to children."
- I wrote: "Through noticeable comedic phrasing and words, he applies humor to show how extreme ideas become commonplace." The author wrote: "In barbed comic passages, Shteyngart tempers the humor enough to show how vast swaths of the citizenry now accept as normal what once would have been considered dangerously extreme."
- I wrote: "This is a gentle and captivating story." The author wrote: "Still, most of this tenderly charming novel..."
- --- My paraphrase is derived from different sentences or phrases that occur throughout the article. It is where the author seemed to provide commentary about the value of the novel to him or her. We can leave this, or rewrite it if you want, or I can provide a direct quote from the article. What is your opinion? ---Steve Quinn (talk) 21:25, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- For the second point, I think it really needs to be changed in some way, because it borders on WP:Close paraphrasing, and because, unlike the rest of the page, the language sounds kind of flowery instead of like Wikipedia text. Either quote it directly, or summarize the main points without paraphrasing. For example, for the first bullet point, I would change "says that Shteyngart's writing consists of satire and sadness" to something like "praises how Shteyngart combines satire with sadness". And so forth. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- Sorry about the close paraphrasing and the non-neutral language. This is why a second pair of eyes can be helpful. I will think about this for a bit to see which avenue to take. I am thinking a direct quote or combining a couple of direct quotes would be best. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:01, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- What I mean is, if I use two direct quotes I will use the three dots in between (an "ellipsis" - I had to look it up). Anyway, when I have it, I will let you know. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 22:08, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- For the second point, I think it really needs to be changed in some way, because it borders on WP:Close paraphrasing, and because, unlike the rest of the page, the language sounds kind of flowery instead of like Wikipedia text. Either quote it directly, or summarize the main points without paraphrasing. For example, for the first bullet point, I would change "says that Shteyngart's writing consists of satire and sadness" to something like "praises how Shteyngart combines satire with sadness". And so forth. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:42, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
- -- OK. I changed the text to two quotations separated by an ellipsis. Let me know what you think. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 19:35, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks! Sorry that this had to be such a long slog, especially since DYK isn't FA, but I felt that these fixes were necessary for something to be on the main page, and I think this resulted in a very fine new article. As far as I'm concerned, this is good to go and ready for the green check, but we just need to settle on a hook. I'm a bit partial to ALT2, but I want to see what you think. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:44, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- No problem about fixing the article with the main page in mind. And I agree that this resulted in a very fine article. So, after mulling over ALT2 and ALT3, I also think ALT2 is the better or best choice. Thanks for the feedback and the help. We have a green board. All systems are GO! ---Steve Quinn (talk) 20:03, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
- Thanks! Sorry that this had to be such a long slog, especially since DYK isn't FA, but I felt that these fixes were necessary for something to be on the main page, and I think this resulted in a very fine new article. As far as I'm concerned, this is good to go and ready for the green check, but we just need to settle on a hook. I'm a bit partial to ALT2, but I want to see what you think. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:44, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
for ALT2. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:06, 22 July 2025 (UTC)
