Wikipedia:Peer review/McLaughlin Planetarium/archive1
Self-nomination What I believe is a thorough article on a now-defunct institution, the McLaughlin Planetarium in Toronto. Extensive references (done in the new Wikipedia style) plus an annotated image of the planetarium projector model that was used, and "before" and "after" images. ;-) I have covered off all that I can find about this planetarium in my researches. Comments welcome! Captmondo 04:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- I think this is a very impressive article, and it is fortunate that someone has taken the time to put this on Wikipedia, given that this building may not be with us much longer (and its use as a planetarium has already started to fade from our collective memory). I went ahead and made a few minor edits (typos, punctuation, etc.) rather than listing them here. My only substantive comment is that I find the footnotes to be very intrusive and distracting -- I would prefer that numbers, rather than words, be used to indicate footnotes in the body of the article. But that's just my own personal view, and others may disagree. Otherwise, great article. Skeezix1000 17:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
- I understand what you are saying with regard to the new footnote formatting. But I gather that this is one of the preferred formats these days, a good example that just made Feature Article status is the article on Paul Kane. I gather the "old" numbered format is still valid, but wanted to keep up to date and switched to this style. I may be wrong and it may be overkill in this case, but we'll see what happens when I push it in the future as a Feature Article Candidate. Thanks for the feedback, and personally, am glad that there is now some decent reference on what was once a notable Toronto landmark. Cheers! Captmondo 19:20, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
- Nice article. Just three points:
- There are several ways of doing references. Numbered references are one possibility, symbolic references (like you used, and like I used on Paul Kane) are another, and the new built-in <ref> mechanism is yet another way of doing it. (See m:Cite/Cite.php.) Which method is used is largely a matter of taste, although numbered references without using <ref> require manual maintenance of the numbered list at the end to make sure the numbers match up with the in-text numbers.
- I think the extended discussion of the projector belongs to its own article, maybe at Planetarium projector. As far as I can see, it's a standard planetarium projector as used in many other planetariums world-wide. If it is in some ways a special projector, that should be pointed out.
- Was it really from the "Kombinat VEB Carl Zeiss Jena"? If so, it was from Jena, East Germany, not West Germany. (The "Kombinat" is a dead giveaway, you find that only with east-German companies. Also the "VEB" ("VolksEigener Betrieb")). See also [1].
- Lupo 10:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you Lupo for the critique. The company name is correct, so I must have been mistaken in attributing it to a West German firm. What you say makes some sense though, as the image of that same model of projector that I used for illustrative purposes is from a planetarium from a formerly East Bloc country. The projector was not in itself unique, but it was (so I gather) one of the better ones of its generation, and modern planetaria use a different technology, much less reliant on mechanics. But I take your point, and will move some of more technical details to a new Planetarium projector entry as you suggest. (Incidentally, I found in my general researches on the McLaughlin Planetarium, this article, which would seem to be a good starting point in terms of general background information on this subject). And as for the references, I think I will keep them as is, since it is not wrong/broken. Thank you for your comments—much appreciated! Captmondo 18:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
- Done! The Planetarium projector is basically an extended stub, but will work on that and build it up over the next little while. I have found sufficient references to build that article into something (hopefully) of comparable quality to this one. Captmondo 19:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you Lupo for the critique. The company name is correct, so I must have been mistaken in attributing it to a West German firm. What you say makes some sense though, as the image of that same model of projector that I used for illustrative purposes is from a planetarium from a formerly East Bloc country. The projector was not in itself unique, but it was (so I gather) one of the better ones of its generation, and modern planetaria use a different technology, much less reliant on mechanics. But I take your point, and will move some of more technical details to a new Planetarium projector entry as you suggest. (Incidentally, I found in my general researches on the McLaughlin Planetarium, this article, which would seem to be a good starting point in terms of general background information on this subject). And as for the references, I think I will keep them as is, since it is not wrong/broken. Thank you for your comments—much appreciated! Captmondo 18:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)