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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 02:20, 1 February 2008.

Manga

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I'm nominating this article for featured article status because it is an excellent example of what can be done when people with disparate ideas put their minds together and work to greatly improve the article. This article gives an excellent overview of manga, and directs those interested to further information in sub-articles and related articles. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Nominate and Support for reasons laid out above. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've only skimmed the article and it certainly looks good. I do have a curiosity. Why -- in an article about a visual medium -- are there so few images? Is the issue availability? --JayHenry (talk) 06:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are at least a couple reasons: one is fair use. There are some editors here who flip out if you have more than 2-4 fair use images in an article (even really long articles with a lot of solid content). With manga, it kind of requires you to have fair use images to give examples, but we went to the side of caution to avoid said editors from going into conniptions. Additionally, there's been a lot of discussion about which images should be included (see the talk page (and archives) for several long discussions about it), but outside of the images already in the article, people didn't reach consensus about the specific images to include. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 07:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We do have commons:Category:Manga. -- Ned Scott 09:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The article indeed is very good but I think the section on International markets need to be expanded. For one example I will take my country, Brazil. Where during the last 6 years we went from 2 titles been translated and poorly, to the rise of 4 different publishers specialized in licensing and translating manga. Was this to the lack of English sources for that? Samuel Sol (talk) 19:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that is the most likely reason for lack of information. If you know of some good sources, and can read them, you are welcome to add some information. Please keep in mind, though, that the most important information for the article is English-language and Japanese language releases. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 01:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose — I feel the article suffers from many issues to prevent it from being of FA quality.
  1. "History and characteristics" is overly long (over 50% of the article) and merges two seperate concepts. It is also set up in a confusing format that isn't exactly chronological and keeps resetting itself for each demographic it talks about. The level of detail for this section is more fitting for History of manga. The main manga article needs a tighter summary of its history.
    I have addressed this issue now by trimming the History section even more than before. I think it works better now as a summary. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The characteristics of manga and how it differs from comics from other nations takes a backseat in the previously mentioned section, when it really should be the focus of the article if anything. Core aspects of the average manga that the article completely ignores include the following. (Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a major source for much of the following information).
    1. Pacing. The average manga can go on for years, and things generally take a long time to be resolved. This is in contrast to American comics, which feel a need to have a resolution after every issue (long story arcs don't come around for much later). A theory on this is due to the publishing method: since a manga chapter is printed with chapters from many other manga, the reader's enjoyment isn't reliant on one story, and lack of a conclusion is less of an issue. However, the single issue format of American comic books, in which that issue may be the only one a reader picks up, causes a focus on quick resolutions.
    2. Use (and lack) of detail. This is where manga is more similar to European comics (such as The Adventures of Tintin). The average manga (from a talented mangaka) has characters with low facial detail, but highly detailed backgrounds and objects (for example, in this image from Yotsuba&!). This technique is used to trick the reader is relating to the characters, as the lower the amount of detail there is for a character, the more able the reader is able to relate the character to himself, or to someone he knows. This is less true the older the demographic gets.
    3. Use of screentones. In a modern-day context, the use of screentones is nearly non-existant outside of manga. Alternative comics in other nations (which usually must be in black and white for cost reasons) use other shading techniques such as hatching, and even "original-language manga" usually lack use of screentones. Nearly all manga make use of screentones; the exceptions being the extremely simple (generally family comics like Sazae-san), the expirimental, and the traditionalists (Osamu Tezuka used them only rarely).
    4. Artistic control. The vast majority of manga are done by one person (and a bunch of uncredited assistants). The average American comic has around five (writer, penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer), which may rotate out constantly. The fact that the copyright for manga stays with the creator and not publisher (which is/was the norm in the US) is never even touched on.
    I will borrow this book from a friend and see what I can do to address these points. If you have a bit of time, please feel free to add in some of this information as well. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. There doesn't seem to be any logic as to why "Shōjo manga" and "Shōjo manga and Ladies' Comics from 1975 to today" are two seperate sub-sections.
    This has been addressed by completely doing away with the History section subsections by merging them all into one shorter History section. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Random examples that don't justify their presence. Example: Rose of Versailles, which does not describe how it was important to the evolution shōjo manga in any way.
    This part has been removed. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. The "International Manga Award": two-line section that doesn't warrent a section at all.
    I expanded this section a little into a more general Awards section. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Much of the content of "Publications" (e.g. the issue of "flipping) belongs in the "International markets" or "Localized manga" section.
    I moved the flipping section, but I think the rest is fine where it is. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  7. "Some relatively well-known publications are:" This violates Wikipedia:Embedded list. It really doesn't even need to be in prose form, as simple example lists are not useful for understanding manga as a whole.
    The list has been removed. 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
  8. What is the following doing in "Dōjinshi"? "Some manga artists will produce extra, sometimes unrelated material, which are known as omake (literally, "bonus" or "extra"). They might also publish their unfinished drawings or sketches, known as oekaki (literally, "sketches"). "
    This has been removed. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Manga culture isn't touched on at all. The fact that "otaku" appears only as a "see also" concerns me. Such a section could incorperate the "Dōjinshi" section.
    Do you have some sources for manga culture? I'm happy to incorporate them if you do. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:54, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, the very structure and content of the article fails the "Comprehensive"-ness required of featured articles. I see the article as only being good article quality.--SeizureDog (talk) 11:02, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment An interesting set of criticisms from one of the people who has worked on this article (as I have myself). The history section was edited down considerably, and much of it was transferred to the History of manga article a while ago. One question -- you wrote:
"Example: Rose of Versailles, which does describe how it was important to the evolution shōjo manga in any way."
Did you mean "which does not describe"?
Timothy Perper (talk) 11:37, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh. Yeah, I meant "does not describe". Lot of text, slipped up. As for the history section, I still feel that it is too long, even with the editing. Ideally, such a section shouldn't have subsections and be capable of single, large summary. The size of what is currently the lead of the section is about the size I feel it should shoot for in order to bring itself more in line with WP:Summary style. The basic problem with the section is getting distracted away from the basic history of the medium and focusing on specific demographics/genres thereof. This amount of detail belongs more in History of manga and the Shōjo, Shōnen, etc. articles. It's also this excess detail that causes the timeline to keep resetting.--SeizureDog (talk) 13:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • CommentOppose, I'm inclined to agree with much of SeizureDog's comments, and looking at the History of manga, I see a lot of that content is mirrored in the main manga article. They either need to be merged, or the separation made more distinct (I'd personally rather see it merged unless the split was purely for size reasons). Along a similar vein on the culture, I was rather suprised to see the entire scanslation issue reduced to nothing but a see also. Considering the legal ramifications, I think it deserves at least some mention, even if the main scanslation article is a hideous mess. International Manga Award could be expanded into a more general Awards section discussiong the various types of award programs for manga (surely IMA isn't the only one?) Collectonian (talk) 13:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changing comment to oppose. The article fails FAC #1a and b - it is not well-written or well-organized, and it is not comprehensive. Several core aspects are ignored or left to a see also, while other aspects are overly detailed, most especially the history section which is almost a complete repeat of the History of manga article. The responses from one of the primary article editors regarding this issues have been less than satisfactory. Indeed, they seem rather aggressive and defensive (and borderline uncivil in the discussion moved to the talk page), and as some of these issues came up before the FA nomination, it seems very unlikely that they will be adequately addressed before the nomination closes. If they are, however, then I will reconsider my oppose.Collectonian (talk) 21:16, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I should note here that the History of manga article is taken from the former section in the Manga article before I severely trimmed it (dropped 30K+ off it, IIRC). I agree that the History of manga section is larger, but it is an important section. Would you be willing to help edit the section to reduce it further? When I edited it, I tried to remove as much detail as possible (because the detail should go in the History of manga article instead) without making it too trimmed. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:03, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment by Tim Perper. I'm very sympathetic to the ideas expressed by Samuel Sol, SeizureDog, and Collectonian. They are each pointing to significant topics and asking that the article include more than a mere mention of those topics. But --

The "but" is space.

This article cannot, in my opinion, cover everything, nor cover the topics it does cover in anything like equal depth. There is simply too much material. For example, the history section of this article used to be much longer, but it was summarized for this article and the complete section moved to the History of manga article. (Which explains why there is overlap -- this repeated use of material is legitimate on Wiki.)

Another example is SeizureDog's discussion, above, of aspects of manga drawing and its stylistics. SeizureDog is describing the kind of material that belongs in the existing article on Manga iconography but cannot, IMO, be included in any depth at all in this article. The same holds for otaku and dojinshi -- and as the wikilinks indicate, there are articles on them too. That's where the description SeizureDog wants should go.

We simply do not have room for everything in this article. Material on manga in Brazil -- a fascinating topic, because Brazil has a large population of people of Japanese descent -- certainly deserves discussion, but the present article cannot do justice to that topic AND to differences in stylistics of American comix and manga AND discuss manga fan cultures (like otaku, dojinshi, and YAOI) AND do a halfway decent job discussing legal, moral, and ethical issues raised by scanlations AND include a dozen more images AND --

I hope my point is clear. We cannot do everything in this article. Cross-references (as wikilinks) exist in virtually every paragraph, sometimes many of them in the same sentence. What this article forces us to understand -- not "force" in a bad way, but makes us recognize as an opportunity -- is that we need to start in on those more specialized articles and improve THEM. Many of them are quite short (shōnen and seinen for example), and they could all use a good cleanup plus a lot more referencing and sourcing. But no one should expect that the present article can deal with them all. It simply cannot.

But that's why Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not one huge, overgrown single article on Everything Anyone Ever Thought of About Manga (or Anime, or Chemistry, or -- you name it). That's why many separate articles exist. So please, folks, go write those articles. SeizureDog, I don't think there's room left in this article to discuss screen tones. But that topic does belong in the Manga iconography article.

Maybe some new articles will be needed, and that's fine. When several of us were un-redlinking entries in this article, about a dozen new articles were created. That is a good thing -- that's what Wiki is for.

But I think this article has about reached the limits of what it can reasonably be expected to cover in the space we have. So, up above, Nihonjoe suggested that we've all done a good job on that, and the whole thing can become an FA -- and then we can do the same kind of thing all over again with all the other articles that need improvement.

That's where I see this article at present.

Timothy Perper (talk) 16:36, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not that it doesn't cover everything in equal depth; it's that there are some things that are not covered at all. This is the core article: it's supposed to have short summaries to all issues relevent to it. This does not mean that every aspect requires a subsection−in some cases, single sentences are enough—but neglecting them isn't the answer. Your excuse is a lack of room, but this just means that the level of detail we have needs split off and the amount in the manga article needs to be lowered. Remember, the basic goal of an encyclopedia is to summarize the subject, and right now, the history section is too long. As a casual reader, the length bores me and takes me too long to get the basic summary that I seek. I suggest you take a quick look at Wikipedia:Summary style#Levels of desired details (I fall in the middle). --SeizureDog (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion does not belong here. I am moving the last comment and my reply to the manga talk page where it belongs. This page is for discussing the FAC of the manga article. Timothy Perper (talk) 19:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Considering how the discussion is my specific rationale for opposing the nomination, I fail to see how it's not on point.--SeizureDog (talk) 20:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with SeizureDog in that this discussion does belong here, and we should take the comments and suggestions here and use them to improve the article. That's my plan, anyway. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 06:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments do not belong here because they deal with specific issues that you want changed in the article. None of those things are relevant to deciding the FA status of the article as it is. You have cast your vote about that and made your point. This page is not a pulpit for airing your theories of manga or screen tones or your belief that the article needs to be split up. I will not discuss these issues further here, but on the manga talk page instead. Timothy Perper (talk) 20:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tim, have you actually read "Supporting and objecting" at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates? I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to do. Also, nothing I've stated were my theories, but other established art critics' theories.--SeizureDog (talk) 21:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The comments are relevant to supporting the Oppose and belong on the FAC; please focus on the article issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After a side discussion on procedures, this is a good time to bring the focus back to the article. Fg2 (talk) 03:33, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose: I'm inclined to agree with much of SeizureDog's comments, especially about the organization and balance of the article (and his/her comments are indeed entirely relevant to the discussion here). I'd like to see the history section be more of a summary-style synopsis of History of manga; the demographic discussions could also, possibly, be split off summary style, with this being more firmly used as the main article for the sub-subjects. In addition, I'd like to see an image in the lead, say a photo of some tankobon volumes or a page illustrating the art style and layout. As is, I feel this is a GA-class article, but not FA. —Quasirandom (talk) 18:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I should add, there's LOTS of really good stuff here -- the editors have done a tremendous job taking it this far the past few months. I just think there's more to do. None of the new material should be lost -- I'm thinking moved. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:02, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
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