Talk:How to Start Your Own Country (book)

This review is transcluded from Talk:How to Start Your Own Country (book)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 20:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dibsing. Ping if I don't get to this within a week. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:17, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Might be worth having some context about Strauss in the lead, if it's possible to cram it in in a small way (is he himself a micronationalist, is he a libertarian philosopher, is he just a random guy, etc)

• How does it look now?

• Looks good

• You say "first" twice in the last sentence of the lead, I think you could reword around it (and again later)

• Reworded.

• Lead is a little scant

• Expanded.

• As a note, I put in a bit about critical reception because the lead should sum up the whole article.

• "noted libertarian" reads oddly - try substituting "noted vegetarian" or "noted cross-fitter". It slightly over-eggs the pudding (not just x but a noted x!) but doesn't really add much. "known for his libertarian views" or "libertarian thinker" maybe?

• I hope "with libertarian views, …" is alright. I originally chose "noted libertarian" because I wanted to distinguish Struass from a libertarian politician!

• Gotcha, yeah, that's what I was trying with my versions. Yours is also perfectly fine :)

• The first paragraph gives us one sentence on Strauss and then zips over to defining micronations. It's slightly confusing. I might separate the sentences "Micronations are..." and "They are classified..." into their own paragraph that opens the section, then get into Strauss and his thinking - "Erwin S. Strauss is an American science fiction author and libertarian thinker who became interested in micronations because of blah blah. Interested in individual freedom..."

• Reorganised. I hope it looks alright now.

• Yup

• "Russel McDougall writes..." a) who? b) this isn't really background, it's analysis

• Reworded.

• I tweaked the sentence about the research institute to give context, and remove some redundant phrasing

• Thanks; I really like it!

• I'm not sure the details about it having a preface and an index are necessary; I don't see them in other book FAs, but I won't force you to remove them if you prefer to keep them.

• I removed the preface mention. IMO as several books I have read do not contain indexes I thought it was noteworthy in this case. I rarely read literature though so I am not really sure on this.

• I think both indexes and introductions are so common as to not merit mention unless RS are highlighting them as somehow unusual. But as I said, I won't fight you on it.

• "The second approach is done by registering a flag of convenience and declaring the ship as sovereign" - if you don't know that flags of convenience is a maritime concept, this makes no sense. Even if you do know, it could use a revision to make it clear it applies to micronations on ships and stuff - try "For micronations based on vessels, a second approach involves registering a flag of convenience but declaring the ship as sovereign", maybe? (I don't think this approach works for land-based ones, does it? Correct me if I'm wrong).

• Implemented. Yes, you are right!

• Is "vonu" a real word or one that Strauss invented? If it's real, can we link to wiktionary? If fake, can we specify?

• According to the book itself it was coined by the "vonuist" libertarian organisation Free Isles in the 1960s. Aside from sources published by the group itself I cannot find any outside usage of vonu yet, so not sure if it is noteworthy enough for Wiktionary (but I'll keep looking).

• I had a look but couldn't find anything either :( On re-read, I would maybe suggest trimming "vonu" entirely so as to avoid the having to define it in-text, as the definition of it is repetitive with the description of it. What about something like: "The fourth approach involves residing in a secluded area and avoiding interaction with authorities, without formally seceding or declaring independence."

• "avoiding unnecessary hostility to avoid persecution" duplicate word in same sentence

• Fixed.

As always, I'm open to discussion about the above points, and any suggested phrasings are just suggestions. Other than that, the article is reasonably well-developed - a little on the shorter side but it seems the sourcing has been reasonably exhausted (Just to cover bases - did you check TWL?). Cover photo is correctly NFCC, no other images. No CV or close para, no Earwig issues. Spot checks of sources I could access did not uncover any issues. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 23:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: Thanks for the review! I have replied to all your comments. Sorry for the wait; as you know I have a FAC which is rather time-consuming. I did check TWL which is how I found the newspaper sources (on newspapers.com); unfortunately there does not appear to be a lot of coverage of this work. ツ LunaEatsTuna (💬)— 04:21, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, you know I have to ask :) I've left comments above. A few things need responded to, but otherwise this is pretty much there. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:38, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: Thanks, I appreciate your edits and suggestions! Should be alright now :) ツ LunaEatsTuna (💬)— 17:40, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good, we're a pass! Great work in this area. I say this a lot, but I wonder if you could get a GT? You could do List of books about micronationalism or something for your top-level article. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:50, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]