Talk:Widener Library/GA1
GA Review
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Reviewer: Ritchie333 (talk · contribs) 21:00, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
As requested:
Lead
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Comments on the body later. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 21:00, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
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Background
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Ritchie -- are you OK with this? EEng (talk) 17:54, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
More later. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 22:14, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
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Building
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I don't see a way of doing this. Feel free to show what you have in mind, if you like. EEng (talk)
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Dedication
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Widener Memorial Rooms
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Amenities and deficiencies
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Taking another break - we'll get there. I'm more convinced now though, that something about book theft should go in the lead. More later. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:06, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
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Collections and stacks
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Harry Elkins Widener Collection
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In literature and legend
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Ritchie, can you show me what you mean on this? EEng (talk) 17:54, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
More later Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:18, 4 January 2015 (UTC) |
Burglary and theivery incidents
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Ritchie, you OK with this? EEng (talk) 17:54, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
Ritchie, you OK with this? EEng (talk) 17:54, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
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Renovation
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That's the main prose done. Just the footnotes and some other citations to checked, and the review will be complete. Two main themes I see throughout are the overuse of quotations and images, which will need to be managed in some way. More later. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 13:03, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Footnotes
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Summary
- I've checked the whole article now. Basically, when every action point is addressed (either by being fixed or convincing me it doesn't need doing), then the article should meet the GA criteria and the review can pass. Until then, I'll mark it as "on hold" to give you a chance to address everything. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:30, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
- I've had a go at putting images into a format that works okay on my browser into the "Background" section. Unfortunately it means most have had to be commented out, but if you are okay with what I've done there, I can go through the rest. The source markup is, well, interesting, but don't fret, none of that is part of the GA criteria! Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:40, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
- I would like some good evidence that " Small numbers of [clarification needed] and [citation needed] are allowable for GA" as my experience has shown this is not the case. The GA criteria point 2 ("Factually accurate and verifiable") - says "all in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged". A [citation needed] means "this statement has been challenged", and therefore does not meet this part of the GA criteria. However, small amounts of unsourced content (where they are obvious things not likely to be challenged eg: "Harvard is a university in Cambridge, MA") can be acceptable for a GA, which may be what you're getting confused with. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:57, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
- [citation needed] does not mean the content has been challenged, just that someone thinks a source should be supplied, which is quite a different thing. Challenged means someone asserting that the statement is unverifiable i.e. that no source exists, whereas [citation needed] simply means Go find the source. See the documentation for {{citation needed}}: "The [citation needed] template is intended for use when there is a general question of the verifiability of a statement, or when an editor believes that a reference verifying the statement should be provided. Other templates are available for other or more specific issues ... For example, claims that you think are incorrect should be tagged with {{Dubious}}..." I'm the one who added the [citation needed], and I'm also the one who wrote the text, and I'm certainly not challenging material I myself wrote. I'm just reminding myself and other editors that a source should be supplied sooner or later.
- [clarification needed] is certainly not a challenge to the material in any way. It just means "Perhaps someone can explain this better, or supply more detail."
EEng (talk) 21:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)
- I just want to pop in here and say that there isn't any evidence that an article has ever been passed as a GA with any kind of maintenance tag. In other words, if it isn't a pressing issue that demands immediate attention, use the talk page to make suggestions for improvement, not tags in the body of the article. A GA article should not have any tags, and if it does, it can be reassessed as a fail in the immediate future. It doesn't matter if the nominator is the one adding the tags. For what it's worth, instead of using tags in this matter, I often create "Issues and errata" sections on the talk page for the very purpose you describe. You may want to think about doing this instead. Viriditas (talk) 03:28, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
- "A GA can't have any tags." Which of WP:GACR criteria 1-6 is that? (Let's leave aside e.g. [citation needed] -- which at least potentially may run afoul of the WP:V criterion -- and suppose we're talking about [clarification needed].) EEng (talk) 05:16, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
- I don't have time for this kind of silliness, so this will be my last and final comment. Up above, you made the extraordinary claim that "small numbers of [clarification needed] and [citation needed] are allowable for GA". I am curious where and how you got this strange idea as it is manifestly false. Finally, I want to mention that I am curious why you would argue for the weakening of our standards and criteria when the very notion of a review is intended to strengthen and improve an article. I don't have the free time required to figure out this high strangeness, but I am very disappointed in your approach. Viriditas (talk) 05:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
- What I tend to do in the case of [clarification needed] is see if the information is important to meet the "broad in coverage" and "focused" criteria. If it isn't, I remove the text near the tag, which causes it to disappear. The article will then meet the GA criteria (all else being equal) and I can pass the review. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:38, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
- I don't have time for this kind of silliness, so this will be my last and final comment. Up above, you made the extraordinary claim that "small numbers of [clarification needed] and [citation needed] are allowable for GA". I am curious where and how you got this strange idea as it is manifestly false. Finally, I want to mention that I am curious why you would argue for the weakening of our standards and criteria when the very notion of a review is intended to strengthen and improve an article. I don't have the free time required to figure out this high strangeness, but I am very disappointed in your approach. Viriditas (talk) 05:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
- "A GA can't have any tags." Which of WP:GACR criteria 1-6 is that? (Let's leave aside e.g. [citation needed] -- which at least potentially may run afoul of the WP:V criterion -- and suppose we're talking about [clarification needed].) EEng (talk) 05:16, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
EEng, consensus on WT:GAN is pretty much unanimous that the review won't pass until all tags are addressed one way or another. Do you have any way of correcting the issues in them? Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 23:08, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
- Well, we'll see what happens there. You'll notice the [citation needed]s are down to 1.
- In the meantime, there are a few "Ritchie, are you OK with this..."-type bumps waiting for you above. Can you take a look at them? I just want to be clear you're OK with everything I've done so far. EEng (talk) 08:37, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
- I need an hour or so to go through everything thoroughly. In the meantime, I see that @ChrisGualtieri: has also criticised the number of quotations in the article. I wouldn't go quite as far as his thoughts, but I do stand by my earlier point that a lot of the quotes should be paraphrased, so the article has a more balanced tone that the reader would expect. I wasn't as bothered about this as the tags, as I knew I could fix that issue myself, and indeed have done a few already. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 09:42, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Just wanted to point out that there are several dozen error messages in the reference section that need to be adressed. Sincerely, Taketa (talk) 09:58, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
- That's not part of the GA criteria, as far as I was aware. And I was kind of hoping a bot or gnome would have done it in the last week. If there are no takers, muggins here will have a go. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 19:40, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
- Already fixed. EEng (talk) 19:58, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
Update
Okay, I've looked back through the article, and now...
- I'm happy with everything reported by EEng above
- There is still one [citation needed] left. I can cite the fact to Barry & Stef's Travel Blog but that's not a reliable source, so that can't be used
- A [needs update] tag has appeared
- There are still too many quotations and images. There is discussion upthread as to why this is, due to problems with excess copying of nonfree content, required copyediting, and the quotations not conforming to a neutral POV.
I'm afraid I think I'm going to have to close the review at this stage. I really wanted to avoid doing this, as you have worked very hard on this, but the 7 day period for being "on hold" is up and there seems to be still quite a bit of work left to do. I did think about going through the article and directly fixing everything myself, but it's just too much of a slog. I would recommended possibly finding a simpler topic to take to GA first, such as Charles R. Apted, as this does look like a tough nut to crack. All that said, the article has been improved and I really don't want the closure to sour your experience of this. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:06, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
- Hold it.
- I've done (I think) everything you've suggested (including a great deal that's not part of the GA criteria) with minor exceptions I've explained and you've agreed to. This took a lot of time. I don't mind, because it's improved the article greatly, but it's had the effect of dragging things out greatly compared to the time it would take if we just stuck to the GACR.
- I've been waiting several days for you to give the OK in the several places above I asked for it, after which I thought we'd review where we are and finish up (especially figuring out how to resolve the questions of the quotes and the images).
- Meanwhile, you may think I'm joking re tags being OK, but the fact is that over at Talk:GA I've (a) quoted a guideline saying explicitly that tags are forbidden only to the extent they relate to the GACR, and (b) twice asked for anyone to simply explain what in the criteria has anything to do with e.g. [clarification needed], and got no answer at all. If we have to remove it I will, but first I'd like to understand why. Doesn't that seem fair?
- The two areas we've been putting off are images and quotations.
- With all due respect, I don't see how "too many images" come under the criteria, and even assuming it does, it's a matter for discussion what constitutes "too many". The only editor (other than you and me) to comment likes it like it is [4]. You may be seeing something different because of a different browser or screen size or whatever, but surely it's a minimum for you to explain what problem you're seeing. (One of the questions I tagged for your response above was exactly about this.)
- And you've said nothing about nonfree content -- in any event, almost all the quoted material is PD, what isn't is clearly fair-use, so again it's just a question of judgment we should discuss -- assuming it comes under GACR in the first place. And where did you say anything about a POV problem with the quotes?
- There's no fixed 7-day hold period, so why the hurry? It's not like you and I have hit an impasse. I really need to ask you to reconsider.
- EEng (talk) 17:48, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
- Let me clear up a few things first. I don't like the concept of "failing" a GA review - that's not nice and aside from a "get out of here" quickfail, it's not true. It simply means (in my view) there is no consensus that the article meets the GA criteria at this time. I did give two examples of where I had fixed up quotations and images, and hoped (possibly erroneously) that the rest would be sorted out.
- To try and move things forward, what I would recommend doing is having a look at some other GAs that are rich in quotes and images - Hammond organ and Ashford, Kent are two GAs I've done, and the reviews were good because they both involved substantial layout changes during the review. Have a look and see how quotations are structured and how images tend to be quite restricted to only a handful per section, with substantial space between them. Hopefully that will give you some idea as to what I'm getting at above.
- I think I've given you the wrong end of the stick regarding PD content. Just because you can copy something, it doesn't follow you should. Most PD content is getting on for 100 years old, if not older than that already, and English that the modern Wikipedia reader recognises has changed.
- I suspect that once the quotations have been replaced with straight paraphrasing, the prose will be sufficiently different that it would be beneficial to start a fresh GA review from scratch. This is exactly what we did with Noel Lee (executive), where I did GA1, failed it due to a lack of broad coverage, helped improve the content, put it up for GA2 a few weeks later and Wizardman passed it as a GA in about 24 hours. I don't see any reason why we can't do the same here, as it seems to have worked quite well.
- In any case, please don't take the close here as an indication that your efforts have been wasted, or that this article will never reach GA. That just isn't the case, and I'm glad you've continued to work on the existing comments. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:02, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Let me turn it around. Just because you can paraphrase something, it doesn't follow you should. You seem to take it as a given that paraphrasing is preferred. Why? Where do you get this idea that our readers can't read (or won't want to read) well-written material from 100 years ago? You say Ashford, Kent and Hammond Organ are "rich in quotes", but they're not. These are, literally, the only "quotations" of any kind in the entire Ashford article:
- Cade is shown conversing with "Dick, the Butcher from Ashford".
- In the 16th and 17th centuries, Ashford became known for nonconformism. A local resident, John Brown was executed for heresy in 1511, and may have inspired the later namesake of the song "John Brown's Body"
- The relevant verse is: "True, a new mistress now I chase, / The first foe in the field; / And with a stronger faith embrace / A sword, a horse, a shield."
- The Borough of Ashford lies on the eastern edge of the ancient forest of "Andredsweald" or "Anderida". Brandon Lewis, High Streets Minister said he would "encourage all businesses in Ashford to sign up and be part of this excellent opportunity to boost their trade in the town centre."
- The club was formed in 1891 as Ashford United but was renamed to Ashford Railway Works in 1909 before settling on the name "Town" in 1930. The club was reformed in 2011 after financial difficulties, including the resignation of owner Tony Betteridge and became known once more as "United".
That's extensive use of quotations??? But most importantly, what in the WP:GACR has anything to do with this?
A little bit back you referred to "problems with excess copying of nonfree content, required copyediting, and the quotations not conforming to a neutral POV." What copying of nonfree content? What required copyediting? What about the quotations has anything to do with NPOV? You keep saying things like this but never explain. EEng (talk) 12:00, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
- All I can really add is that the article as it stands just doesn't quite conform to the layout I would expect of most GAs I read. For a different example, try Elizabeth I of England, that's a featured article and has a few more quotations. Alternatively, if you think the result of a GA review has been unfair or incorrect, you are within your rights to take it to a Good article reassessment. Or you could start up a formal peer review where anyone is welcome to comment. Ultimately, a review of this nature has to come down to the opinions of two people, and while that works most of the time, occasionally things fall through the cracks. I don't think we're going to get any further without an input from a third party on this. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:12, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
- "The article as it stands just doesn't quite conform to the layout I would expect of most GAs I read." See, this is what I'm talking about. You're supposed to be reviewing against the GACR, not against what you expect or what you've seen in other articles. GACR requires conformance with MOS:LAYOUT. Can you tell me what about the article is out of conformance with that. Please don't answer by pointing to some other article you think I should look at. Just tell me, specifically by section #, what requirement of LAYOUT is violated.
- Yes, opinions are involved here, but the only opinions that matter here are opinions about whether the GACR are adhered to. If you can't tell me what part of GACR (or the subsidiary guidelines it points to) is being violated by a given bit of the article, then it's not relevant to this review and we should move on to your next concern. After the review is over I'd be very happy to work with you on any aspect of the article you're interested in improving, but for now I must ask you to stick to the GA requirements alone.
- I see you know Martinevans123 and I'd like him to come help us. EEng (talk) 12:46, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
Second opinion
The article fails 1a because the prose is not clear and concise, thus it is not well-written. For this reason, WP:QUOTE applies. The article also has excessive amounts of unrelated information that would be a WP:COATRACK issue - such as "legends" not even about the library itself. In terms of balance and scope, more attention is given to "Burglary and other incidents" than other aspects - like the design. The article is so wrapped up in itself that it comes off as pure puffery - another key aspect of the criteria. EEng has crafted an article which is so full of itself that it comes across as snobbish and overtly grandiose. It is one of the few articles that actually pains me to read. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 06:58, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
- @ChrisGualtieri: - can you be a little more specific? EEng is working through the quotations at the moment, and hopefully that will resolve most of the concerns. Unfortunately your opinion of the content is a little woolly and difficult to address unless you go into specifics, I'm afraid. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
- Essentially - if you are going to use a quote, make it count. So many of the quotes being used are best handled in paraphrasing. The background section uses a chopped up quote about Gore Hall, this would be a good example since it is already close to paraphrasing. Another would be
(Behind the card catalogs, and "barely large enough for a single table", was once a separate Radcliffe Reading Room, to which female students were restricted "for fear their presence would distract the studious Harvard men" in the Main Reading Room[22]—though by World War II women "could go into the [Main Reading Room] and use the encyclopedias and things like that there, if we stood up, but we couldn't sit down".)
which is a jumble. Though this is a more of what I was trying to indicate: In the Memorial Rooms, after a benediction by Bishop William Lawrence,[7] a portrait of Harry Widener was unveiled, then remarks delivered by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (speaking on "The Meaning of a Great Library"[44] on behalf of Eleanor Widener) and Lowell ("For years we have longed for a library that would serve our purpose, but we never hoped to see such a library as this").[45] The Transcript continued: After the ceremony of presentation, the doors were thrown open, and both graduates and undergraduates had an opportunity to see the beauties and utilities of this important university acquisition.[7]
- This is jumbled and coat-racking. It flips back and forth with strange syntax and is penetrated by parenthesizes of a questionable nature. It then concludes with another descriptive quote which for all intentions is a flowery excuse to further make the library and its workings more important and grandiose. The sheer number and tone collectively makes this article not neutral and not a disinterested presentation of a topic. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:54, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, Chris. I think this comes under the general scope of sorting out the quotations, so when that's done I'll take another look. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:55, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
- Essentially - if you are going to use a quote, make it count. So many of the quotes being used are best handled in paraphrasing. The background section uses a chopped up quote about Gore Hall, this would be a good example since it is already close to paraphrasing. Another would be
Picking up where we left off
@Ritchie333 and Martinevans123: Ritchie, can you go through and just add {{done}} to whichever points you think are handled but not yet explicitly closed? Then we can handle the few that are left, including quotes and images. ME123, any smartass assistance you can render will be appreciated. EEng (talk) 06:02, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
- There was one copyedit, which I've done - everything else outstanding is from "Summary" downwards. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 12:33, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
- Wow! All those beautiful purple and green collapse boxes! Thanks for slogging through it all. Martinevans123 is just standing around beancounting instead of helping out. Are you OK with the images (at least for the purposes of this review)? You'll notice I dropped the headshot of Mrs. Widener, and there's a good deal more text in the Background section than there was when you did your original run-through. EEng (talk) 13:59, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
Images
Okay, regarding images ... File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary SecondFloorPlan SneadIronWorks.jpg needs a caption, and for the remainder, I think all the ones on the right hand size from "Conception and gift" down to "Burglary and other incidents" could benefit from being reduced in size, as at the moment they appear one after the other without a gap. File:HarvardCollegeLibrary HardLaborBookplate.jpg is supposed to be at the start of "Burglary and other incidents" but instead it appears towards the end of the section, because there's not enough space on screen to accomodate all the right-facing images from earlier. This is what I was getting at regarding Ashford, Kent - there are lots of images but they're spaced evenly. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:24, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
- Well, not every image has to have a caption (WP:CAP -- see the lead), so it seems to me that the two images at Building -- an exterior shot and a floorplan -- are sufficiently self-explanatory, given they're in the section describing the exterior and the floorplan!
- Beyond that, I've taken a baby step by reducing most (not all) the images about 10%, but this brings up a new problem: counterintuitively, this frequently increases the vertical height of the image box, because while reducing the image's width reduces its height proportionally, the amount of caption text remains fixed, and with a narrow box the caption part simply has to expand vertically. Further, narrow caption boxes mean more linebreaks, and this means more space on any given line is wasted as white space. Thus, reducing the upright param can actually make the image boxes taller overall! I've tried to trim the captions a bit here and there as well to ameleorate this problem.
- But before we continue on images, there's a puzzle that we need to penetrate, which is that I'm not seeing the phenomena you're talking about -- especially that all the image stack is pushing down the "bookplate" image. What browswer - screen size - zoom % are you using? In your WP preferences, what is the Preferences > Appearance > Thumbnail size setting? (Also, if it's IE, what text size are you using -- medium, larger, etc.). I have a very wide screen, which should make these problems worse, but I'm still not seeing it. EEng (talk) 22:15, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
- I've just done a lot of juggling and resizing of images, and dropped one or two more. Whatcha think now? -- EEng, January 17
- <bump>Ritchie333
Okay, things are getting better, but current problems I think are :
- File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary Reading c1915.jpg through to File:Widener Library, Harvard University, Cambridge MA.jpg doesn't seem to have any space
- They're not supposed to. They form a sequence from outside to inside.
- File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary SneadAdvertisement 1915.jpg could do with being cropped to just show the picture
- The whole point is to show that suppliers were falling all over themselves to let potential customers know that their product had been selected for this project. There's even a floor-polishing equipment manufacturer that advertised that their floor-polishing machine was used!
- I don't see the relevance of File:HarvardUniversity WidenerLibrary CardCatalogs 1915.jpg to the Gutenberg Bible Theft
- It's not. You said you wanted the images more spaced out, so I did. Images can't be spaced out AND always relevant to the sections they end up in. However, I did put it there so that it would be near the image of the catalog card, which comes right after. Many readers will never have seen a bank of catalog drawers, much less a catalog card. I think I linked card catalog while I was at it, in one or the other caption.
- There are some lists there. Can't remember if they were there and I didn't notice, but I think they should be represented as prose
- If you're talking about the bullet list at Widener_Library#Departmental_and_special_libraries that's exactly the sort of stuff WP:EMBED#Long_sequences says should be that way.
- EEng (talk) 02:25, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
What I really think is, unfortunately, we don't seem to be closing the gap. I'm not going to close the review just yet, but with the seconder saying the review should be failed, I think in all honesty you're better off working on this in the background and letting somebody do a fresh review from scratch. I don't think I've done a GA review this long either in terms of time or content, and it seems like I'd have to start all over again from scratch. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:59, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Quotations
- Of course we're closing the gap. All that's left is the idea that more of the quotes should be paraphrased. As far as I'm concerned they're fine, despite one editor's personal preference for paraphrasing, and I don't see where the guidelines favor that particular point of view. An important aspect of the subject is the way this new building was presented in the press, touted as a modern marvel, etc etc. Case in point: the following quotation, from the end of the Dedication section:
- After the ceremony of presentation, the doors were thrown open, and both graduates and undergraduates had an opportunity to see the beauties and utilities of this important university acquisition.
- Another editor calls this "a flowery excuse to further make the library and its workings more important and grandiose." That's silly. This is an illustration of the respect given to, and pride taken in, institutions like libraries back then -- especially this one. The article sets the quote off to exhibit that attitude for the reader to observe -- to see this as the article itself puffing the library's "beauties and utilities" shows a complete failure of critical literacy. You would not, today, find a full-page spread (front page, if I recall) in the Boston Globe devoted solely to the dedication of a college library. It's important to convey the sense of awe and reverence with which the library was received, and that's just as (maybe more) important than its physical dimensions and so on, and the quotes do that very effectively (while giving pleasure to the reader who appreciates good writing).
- As a further example, another editor says the article "has excessive amounts of unrelated information that would be a WP:COATRACK issue - such as "legends" not even about the library itself" i,e, the legends that Mrs. Widener wanted all future Harvardians to learn to swim, and/or arranged for there to always be ice cream at Harvard meals. I'm pinging DGG, who is peculiarly qualified to opine on whether those do or don't belong in this article.
- Even if there's more debate to be had on the quotes, it's not relevant to this review. "Concise and well-written" doesn't mean "paraphrase most or all quotes". This is a matter of judgment which can be further hashed out during normal editing. EEng (talk) 02:32, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
- I do think some of this a little excessive, in particular footnotes E, H, J, and K . The two quotes in 2.1 are unnecessary altogether, the quote in 2.3 does not need indenting, And as a matter of style, I think that many of the paragraphs should be combined. For a subject like this, a choppy style seems a little primitive. DGG ( talk ) 20:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
- [The above comments refer to this version of the article
- I did a pass over and you're right about merging some of the paragraphs. [5] I rewrote to eliminate the first quote in 2.1, and ran in the quote in 2.3. I also killed notes E and J. However, I kept the last quote in 2.1, and note H, because I really feel that contemporary descriptions of the dedication, and of the "marvels" of the building itself (as seen at the time) fill out its place in popular perception of the time. I also kept K because I think it needs to be clear that there are some things Widener (and, in fact, Harvard overall) doesn't collect. EEng (talk) 03:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
- Still some quotes are not cited or appear in there source like
"pile of stones and rubbish"
. Some notes like reference O are inappropriate and entirely off topic. I have no idea whyAnother story, holding that Eleanor Widener donated a further sum to underwrite perpetual availability of ice cream (purportedly Harry Widener's favorite dessert) in Harvard dining halls, is also without foundation.
is even in this article because it is not about the library at all. The entire "Swim-requirement, ice-cream, and other legends" section is without actual use to the article at all. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:59, 21 January 2015 (UTC)- The "pile of stones and rubble" citation is given directly at the start of note D [6]. The "legends" material absolutely belongs, because the claim is these were conditions of Mrs. Widener's gift of the library. EEng (talk) 16:57, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
- Still some quotes are not cited or appear in there source like
- I do think some of this a little excessive, in particular footnotes E, H, J, and K . The two quotes in 2.1 are unnecessary altogether, the quote in 2.3 does not need indenting, And as a matter of style, I think that many of the paragraphs should be combined. For a subject like this, a choppy style seems a little primitive. DGG ( talk ) 20:30, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Act IV
Okay, I think I'm going to have to admit defeat and despite EEng's best efforts, there is no consensus to pass this as a GA at this time. What I would recommend doing is creating a peer review and inviting all interested parties in there to thrash out the problems, then bring it back here for another GA. I know it sounds like clipboard wielding, and we should WP:IAR, but the review has been going for two and a half weeks, which is something of a marathon by GA standards, and it really is time I gave my full attention to something else. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
- GA is not a consensus process. It's just meant to be the opinion of one reviewer -- you. Like it says at WP:Reviewing good articles
- The Good article (GA) process is intentionally lightweight. Anyone, including unregistered users, can nominate an article and (subject to the next two paragraphs) any registered user can review: multiple votes, consensus building, and committees are not required
- You're free, as you have, to ask for other opinions, but as seen above to good points raised by DGG have been attended to, and the objections raised by another editor have been thoroughly rebutted. On January 4 you said, "I've checked the whole article now. Basically, when every action point is addressed (either by being fixed or convincing me it doesn't need doing), then the article should meet the GA criteria and the review can pass" I've attended to every point you've raised, so unless there's some point I've missed the obvious thing to do is pass it -- there's been way too much work put in here for it to be tossed away now.
- After tha, if some other editor then thinks you've made a mistake he's free to raise it at GAR. EEng (talk) 16:57, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
- A 70K GA review is anything but lightweight! Obviously you weren't going to agree on this - we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 17:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
Still waiting to hear what exactly needs doing
The review has gone on as long as it has because most of the points you raised along the way aren't relevant to GACR. As discussed before, I've been very happy to adopt those ideas because they have improved the article. But you can't then turn around and say the review is too long.
On January 12 you listed your concerns as
- There is still one [citation needed] left...
- A [needs update] tag has appeared
- There are still too many quotations and images. There is discussion upthread as to why this is, due to problems with excess copying of nonfree content, required copyediting, and the quotations not conforming to a neutral POV.
The cn has been fixed. A [needs update] doesn't violate GACR. I asked you,"What copying of nonfree content? What required copyediting? What about the quotations has anything to do with NPOV?" and your only response was to raise something entirely different, which was "All I can really add is that the article as it stands just doesn't quite conform to the layout I would expect of most GAs I read" -- and that has nothing to do with GACR either.
Then you raised some questions about image placement, I answered those, and you said nothing to suggest those answers weren't satisfactory. And finally we talked about the quotes, and DGG dropped by to comment on that, and I incorporated most of his suggestions (explaining why I rejected two of them). You haven't said anything about why there are any problems now there, either.
Now then... If you're going to fail the review, you need to say what the unaddressed problem is. I think it's fair, at this point, to insist that this be something you've raised already, so please quote something you actually said earlier in the review. EEng (talk) 18:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)