Talk:When Megan Went Away

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 August 2021 and 17 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): CadeCaggiano.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:51, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Adding New Changes

Hi! I am planning on making some changes to the the article in the coming weeks. I am aware that the article is pretty well developed, hence the good article rating it received. However, I do believe there is work to be done to improve it even further. For one, I am aiming to clean up the introduction section, considering there are no citations referenced in the current version. Secondly, and arguably the most notable change I will make to the article is the reorganization of the structure, which I believe will better align with the Wikipedia standard. For example, I will make sure that the article includes these sections in this order: Intro, Background, Plot, Genre, Publication, Reception, Analysis, Awards. I will not discard a majority of the information already written in the article, I will just reassign it to fit under the sections mentioned. I believe that by doing so, the information will be better organized and easier for readers to navigate. In addition to structural changes, I might make a few sentence revisions or grammatical corrections where I see fit. Lastly, one of my main goals is to try to make the reception piece as neutral as possible, representing both positive and negative sides of the spectrum. I believe that currently it is a little one sided, representing the negative takes on the book. If I can find enough quality sources to balance this out, I will be very pleased. Again, I won't be making any huge content changes but I feel that these structural changes and small revisions will go a long way in improving the article's quality. Here is the list of sources I will be using to make these changes: [Megan Went Away Bibliography] /> CadeCaggiano (talk) 13:52, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi CadeCaggiano (also ccing Fuiszl), thanks for your message (and welcome to Wikipedia!). I've edited the majority of this page so far and I'm happy there's interest in the oft forgotten book! I want to flag a few things for you before you start making sizable changes to this page, and also explain my thinking about why the structure of this page is the way it is.

On your first point about including citations in the lead, I chose not to following the guidance set out at MOS:LEADCITE. Everything included in the lead section is also included (and cited to a reference) elsewhere in the article, and considering the lead does not contain contentious information about living people or direct quotes, my thought was that it probably didn't need the citations duplicated there. I also note that Plot sections generally don't require sources since it's implied that the source of the Plot section is going to be the work itself.

In regards to reorganizing this page, I think it's not a bad idea to move a potential Background section above the Plot section. We only really have two Featured Articles about picturebooks on Wikipedia (Make Way for Ducklings and The Story of Miss Moppet) and both do a Background pre-Plot so I think that's fine. Before the Good Article review (which you can read above), I had originally had Background broken out as a separate section (see an older version of the article here). If you do move Background before Plot, you'll need to rebreak the Writing section from the Background section and either add it as a new section below Plot or maybe combine it with the Publication section. I'm not sure how useful a Genre section will be for this article, as the work is pretty clearly a fiction picturebook and I don't recall being able to find many sources with people disagreeing about the genre. Likewise, Analysis largely fits into the existing Legacy section although could also potentially be added as a subsection of Reception. Finally, I don't think this work has won any awards(?) so I don't think an Awards section is necessarily warranted.

In regards to beefing up the Reception section with more sources, please go ahead! I pretty much used all the sources I could find for this page but I see that your bibliography has some I didn't find in which case it'll be great to have them added! My only caveat there is that you should consider the guidelines at WP:WEIGHT. The current Reception section's negative bent is largely because most sources I've been able to find consider the work to be culturally important but not very ~good~ as a book. If you have sources with more favorable reviews, you should definitely bring them into the piece, but be wary that it's not Wikipedia's job to present equal positive and negative views for any given work but rather to weight views relative to their prevalence (so if we have negative reviews and one positive, best practice would be to have a four or five sentences on the negative reception and maybe just one on the positive reception).

If you have any questions along the way, I'm happy to try and help out as best I can. I'd also encourage you to check out some other LGBT picturebook articles that are in worse shape than this one, like the better-known Heather Has Two Mommies, the first gay male picturebook Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin, or the very short article for the first picturebook with a trans character, 10,000 Dresses. Looking forward to your work! Kindly —⁠Collin^{t c} 16:19, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Bobamnertiopsis, thanks for all the feedback you provided. I really appreciate your guidance and knowledge as I look to work through this process.

In regards to your defense of the organizational structure of the article, I completely understand where you're coming from. When initially analyzing the page, I was hoping to realign the structure closer to the guidelines found on the third page of this article they posted: [1]. However, after reading your comments, it makes perfect sense why you believe the structure is sufficient as is.

Considering your remarks made about the potential relocation of the background section, I do believe this is a potential area of growth which I can contribute to the article. I will have to separate the writing section from the background section and potentially move that information into the publication section. Of course, any help or revisions you want to make to my background section would be greatly appreciated (I will probably use your previous version as a basis for my new section).

In addition, I agree with your statements about the reception section. I understand that the main goal is to weigh different receptions respective to their prevalence, but I do believe I can add a sentence or two in positive light which could be beneficial.

Similarly, I believe that I can bolster the legacy section of the article with information that would typically fall under an "analysis" section according to the guidelines linked above. My goal would be to implement these additions in a seamless way without interfering with the flow of your writing.

I have received a copy of When Megan Went Away through the library so I was potentially thinking about reading the full book and adding to the plot description you have provided. Again, if you think this is a bad idea just let me know.

Lastly, I wanted to get your opinion on the prospects of adding a "Recent Developments" section to the article, separate from the Legacy section. I found some information that indirectly describes recent trends or headlines regarding the genre and efforts of books like When Megan Went Away to become main stream for children.

I look forward to hearing back from you and working with you along the way. Kind regards CadeCaggiano (talk) 14:13, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi CadeCaggiano. Thanks for your notes! The only note of caution I have now is that I'm not sure a "Recent Developments" section necessarily makes sense for a page like this if the information it would contain isn't directly pertinent to WMWA. I'm actually surprised realizing just now that we have no article about queer characters in picturebooks (the closest would have to be this section in the Gay literature article) but a "Recent developments" section would be much better suited for an article covering the whole topic of queer kids' literature, rather than any article on an individual book. Looking forward to seeing what you do with this page! —⁠Collin^{t c} 21:28, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Hi Bobamnertiopsis. I would like to inform you that I have finished making my draft for potential edits/additions to be made for the article. I used the sources you used plus a few others to make educated additions that I hope you will like. A linked version of my draft is here: [2]. As you will read in the preface, I summarize my edits and explain how my personal additions are found in bold text. Feel free to read and reply back to me with any feedback, suggestions, or general comments in the talk page. After we agree on finalizing the edits, I will publish them live to the actual page (hopefully by this Sunday, Dec 8). Thanks, CadeCaggiano (talk) 00:13, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Hi CadeCaggiano, thanks for sending this my way. Your additions look good and I'm happy to help integrate your added references into the style this article is already using. The one thing to watch out for is that you're citing that Smith article for the quote "vision that may be more emotionally honest" but I think that Smith article is quoting Crisp (2010) saying that, so it might be better just to cite Crisp for that quote (page 88). Thanks! —⁠Collin^{t c} 17:36, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Should "as of" wording reflect past tense?

The lede states "copies are primarily accessible in archives and library special collections as of the 2010s." Should this be changed to past tense? ☆ Bri (talk) 21:05, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Good question, Bri. Anecdotally nothing has changed but it's no longer the teens and I don't have a more recent source vis-a-vis availability so I'm happy for it to be in the past tense. —⁠Collin^{t c} 23:40, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Locking article to prevent vandalism

Several guest users are vandalizing the article every minute. I think the article should be locked to prevent further vandalism. Harrier Du Bois (talk) 03:19, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Harrier Du Bois, it looks like Paul Erik has semi-protected the page now which should put an end to this. —⁠Collin^{t c} 03:23, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

What happened, like why the sudden spike in vandalism? 1keyhole (talk) 03:32, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

It's currently the biggest article on the Main Page: today's featured article. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 05:18, 26 April 2023 (UTC)