Talk:The California Field Atlas

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The California Field Atlas has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
May 19, 2019	Good article nominee	Listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on July 8, 2019.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that The California Field Atlas by Obi Kaufmann is neither a field guide nor a conventional atlas?

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The California Field Atlas/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ceoil (talk · contribs) 22:50, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be reviewing this article. However, I don't really understand the highly structured GA process, so this maybe somewhat freewheeling and more akin, but less hoity and angsty, to PR. Ceoil (talk) 22:50, 11 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

After an extensive read through, during which I made some heavy duty copy edits, I am inclined to pass this as GA. It's well sourced, written, and comprehensive. If I have any quibble its that there seems to be no effort to illustrate the article, on a topic that inherently could benefit from visuals that would provide both locus and generate near automatic sympathetic POV. I assume Commons has lots. Either way....this is easily GA to me. Ceoil (talk) 01:45, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sonksen 2018 gives a harv ref error. Ceoil (talk) 04:43, 12 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review! Fixed that harv ref. I looked over your copyedits and they were all significant improvements. The only change I disagreed with was removing the term "nature writing", which I think conveys the relevant subset of those writers' works as well as alluding to the overall post-Thoreau literary tradition of nonfiction nature writing.

I'd be interested in any feedback or suggestions you have for further illustrations. Some of the photos I selected are perhaps not visually remarkable in and of themselves, but seemed like possibly the only plausible options to accompany a given block of text (eg the UC Berkeley library building in the "Reception" section). Here are some ideas/here's me thinking out loud:

It looks like there is now a Commons-compatible portrait of the author on Flickr, so that's a no-brainer. The downside is it's a bit dated (2010) and his appearance has changed drastically since then (his woodsy beard is nowhere to be found), plus it's angled from above so it doesn't show him very directly. He's appearing at a bookstore near me on June 7th so I could just go to that and do the paparazzo thing.
One easy option could be to line up portraits of his major influences (Tolkien, Muir, et al), perhaps in a style similar to what I've done elsewhere—right now Snyder is the only one depicted, while Stegner is the only named influence with no PD/free-license portrait.
I considered using a map of California, but commons:Category:Maps of California doesn't offer much that's visually inspiring. Maybe the best way to address this would be to have a side-by-side with one of Kaufmann's painted maps next to its drab PD source map, mirroring the side-by-side coyotes. This would illustrate Kaufmann's point about the wealth of geographical info available and the dearth of creative application of same. Will have to go back through his interviews and the book to decide on a map but it would probably be something that accompanies the quote box about river maps.
There may be better options for Mount Diablo; the photo I chose has it a bit far off in the distance, and shot from an unusual side that may make it less recognizable as Mount Diablo to residents and others who know it. This centers the mountain itself better than most available pics and is probably a more "quintessential" view of the mountain (green grass is typically seen in the few rainiest months of the year, for most of the year it's yellow), although the freeway would contradict Kaufmann's road-free vision. This from Flickr also looks quite good.
His book tour coincided with the 2017 California wildfires, so an aerial photo of the late-'17 fires (1, 2, 3) might work. —BLZ · talk 01:18, 13 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You had linked nature writing twice in the lead. That indiscretion aside, this is a most interesting and impressive page. Not done on reading; spectrum complaints to follow. Ceoil (talk) 06:12, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ps love [1], at least include, maybe also 2. This is the suff that gives grounding to the page. Ceoil (talk) 06:27, 19 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References

As of this revision[2]...harv errors with refs 11, 43, 50 & 55. Unable to fix myself, but have the script...sorry. Ceoil (talk) 00:37, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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 Yoninah (talk) 21:03, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The California Field Atlas, Obi Kaufmann

( Comment or view )

( Article history links:

)

... that The California Field Atlas by Obi Kaufmann is neither a field guide nor a conventional atlas? Source: Myrow 2018 and Spotswood 2018—both of these are audio interviews with the author, who explains his terminology and why he fused those two genre terms together. The relevant quotes and time locations from these interviews are cited in the article; see the first two sentences of the "Genre and themes" section and the footnotes there.

Reviewed: A Colour Box and Mario Pouliot
Comment: For the reviewer's convenience: "The California Field Atlas" was promoted to GA on May 19; "Obi Kaufmann" was created on May 23.

Improved to Good Article status by Brandt Luke Zorn (talk). Self-nominated at 22:38, 23 May 2019 (UTC).[reply]

Brandt Luke Zorn, since this nomination includes two eligible DYK articles, two QPQ credits are required. There appears to only be one listed. Flibirigit (talk) 18:03, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: I am willing to start the full review on both nominations, once I finished at XIX Army Corps. Thanks in advance. Flibirigit (talk) 18:07, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good! My mistake on the double QPQ; didn't realize I had to do two, but I'm happy to do so. I've started a DYK review at Gregory Gray, results pending feedback on my comments. I wanted to have a "complete" QPQ so that we weren't waiting on results of a separate nom, so I scrolled through the page again to see if I could find a nom that was ready to go. I found Mario Pouliot—I promise it was a coincidence that it happened to be your nomination—which I've approved. —BLZ · talk 20:33, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the update. I will get back to this hopefully on Sunday, or Monday at the latest. Flibirigit (talk) 03:41, 22 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Obi Kaufmann review

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

Adequate sourcing: - ?
Neutral:
Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article created and nominated same time, therefore new enough. Length is adequate, prose is neutral in tone, and I detected no plagiarism issues. The hook is not cited directly in this article, but it is mentioned in the article on the atlas itself which is sufficient. QPQ requirements have been met. I am curious if a source is available for the last sentence in the "The California Field Atlas and other books" section, regarding future publications. I apologize in the delay in getting back to this review. I will start the review for the article on the atlas tomorrow. Flibirigit (talk) 03:36, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the infobox for Obi Kaufmann; it mentions tattoo artist as one of his occupations, followed by period of 2017 to present. I think this could be misleading, since he was a tattooing well before the recent activities for which he is notable. Flibirigit (talk) 19:22, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The California Field Atlas review

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

Adequate sourcing: - ?
Neutral:
Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article nominated within 7 days of GA promition, therefore new enough. Length is adequate, prose is neutral in tone, and I detected no plagiarism issues. Hook is properly mentioned, is interesting, and cited inline. QPQ requirements have been met. I have a couple minor sourcing questions. In the second paragraph of the "Artwork" section, is there a source available for the final sentence? In the "Follow-up" section, same question as the other review; I am curious if a source is available for the future publications. Flibirigit (talk) 19:19, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good point on the Kaufmann infobox; it's confusing and imprecise. I've removed "period" from the infobox. I've added the citation to the last sentence of the second paragraph of the "Artwork" section; the paragraph was split at some point, so it would have been more clear that the final footnote of that bigger paragraph was the footnote for the whole block of text. I've added another footnote to the end of that second paragraph for clarity. Re: Future publications: I've added the source back into both articles. A past revision of the California Field Atlas page shows that this was the source used, it must have been inadvertently dropped at some point in the editing process. —BLZ · talk 19:39, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing questions have been resolved, and the changes to the infobox are sufficient. Both articles and the double hook are approved. I also feel the hook is suitable for the quirky slot in a DYK set. Thanks for the enjoyable and well-written articles. Flibirigit (talk) 20:39, 25 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]