Talk:Ehrhardt (typeface)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 01:41, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Initial reading: I think there is a lot of good material here, well sourced, that can likely be turned into a good article. But the organization (Good article criteria 1b) is a total disaster. The "Digitisations and alternative versions" and "References" sections are ok, but the lead and "History" section haphazardly mix together aspects of the subject that I think would be better grouped into separate sections:

• The historical background to the creation of the font, including Kis' original work and milieu, and (in a separate paragraph or subsection) the later fashion for creation of other revival fonts
• The choice to make this particular font, who did what when, and the actual design process by which the font was created
• A description of the characteristics of the font: how do its features distinguish it from other fonts, both those with similar designs and those farther from it, and what variations in letter forms (e.g. bold vs roman) does it provide? Does it include an italic already, or is it commonly paired with an italic, and if so which ones match it well in their characteristics such as x-height?
• How the font was received, what critics said about it, and what significant publications have used it

The lead section itself should preferably only summarize what is described in more detail in later sections (MOS:LEAD) and would only need footnotes for direct quotes or other material that remains in the lead and is not a summary of later detail. So, before I read more carefully for how well it meets the other good article criteria, I would like to see a reorganization that takes these issues into account. (I don't think you need to add more new content to the article in such a reorganization, only to change the ordering and section headings of what's already there and possibly work on the transition prose at the starts of the new sections.)

Looking ahead to a more careful reading: the most important image (a sample of the font itself) is already present, but I think there may be scope for adding more, for instance, of the (old enough to be out of copyright) original Kis type on which it was based, Kis himself, or the principal desigeners of the font (good article criteria #6). And when you cite book sources, please include page numbers for the specific information that you're using the citation for (good article criteria #2).

—David Eppstein (talk) 01:41, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments! I think I tried too hard to keep the article short. It should now be a lot better. Main improvements are:

• It's now split into more sections, with more information on Kis.
• More pictures, including of the equipment used to make metal type on a Monotype machine. I wasn't able to find one of Morison that's certainly out of copyright, but everything else is there.
• Refs updated with more information about page numbers, Google Books links added where possible.

Blythwood (talk) 09:31, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok, thanks — I 'll make a second reading soon. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Second reading

Still a few minor cleanups left to do, but almost there.

Good article criteria

1a. Prose quality: generally good but see below for some minor issues

1b. Organization: Much better, and no longer a problem

2a. Reference formatting: some minor issues detailed below

2b. Source reliability: mostly good but see comment on reference 19

2c. No original research: no problems found

2d. No copyright violations or plagiiarism: none found

3a. Broad coverage: Much better, and no longer a problem

3b. No unnecessary detail: none found

4. Neutrality: no problems found

5. Stability: has undergone significant change since last review (appropriately) but is not the subject of any significant controversy

6a. Image licensing: no problems found

6b. Image relevance and captioning: no problems found

Lead

Now summarizes the rest of the article rather than containing new material

Historical background

Matrix (printing) should probably be linked for its first use

"His identity was rediscovered": whose identity?

Modern history

"Its original working title": presumably "it" refers to the Ehrhardt revival but it's not entirely clear

Yannis Haralambous quote: why is this single-quoted instead of double-quoted? The same applies to many later quotes as well. MOS:QUOTEMARKS seems clear that double quotes are required. It might be a reasonable stylistic choice to use single quotes for letters and double quotes for actual quotes, but the usage here seems less consistent than that.

Reception

"An extremely rare infant variant": what is an infant font? It's not a term with which I'm familiar and web searches just turn up specific fonts with no explanation.

References

Lawson (ref.2) has a link going to page 117 on Google books, but no page number in the actual reference.

Are references 12 and 13 (both Heiderhoff's "The Rediscovery of a Type Designer: Miklos Kis") different, or is one just a reprint of the other? If so they could probably be consolidated into a single re-used reference.

Reference 19 "Comments on Typophile thread" is of dubious reliability; see WP:USERGENERATED.

Reference 27 ("Stanley Morison: a portrait") is missing any information about who wrote it, who published it, or where in its 64pp the information cited to it appears.

In reference 40, Luc Devroye should be linked.

External links

"A long, passionate Kis" is redundant here, as it already appears in the references.

—David Eppstein (talk) 02:22, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: - OK, most of that fixed. I will let you know when I'm ready to request another readthrough as there are a few other things I want to think about.

I have some comments on ref19 though. I freely admit it isn't an ideal to cite a forum thread, but the commenter is authoritative - Simon Daniels is a very well-known figure in digital type who manages typography at Microsoft, and his source Robin Nicholas worked at Monotype in his entire career from the 1960s to the 2010s, being involved in digitisations which worked from the original master drawings used to prepare metal type. (Microsoft collaborated with British Monotype extensively for font digitisations in the 1980s and 1990s, which is why a lot of their fonts are on Windows like Times New Roman, Twentieth Century and Gill Sans.) It can be cut if you insist as it's a minor point, but it's interesting and a vivid set of comments, and my impression is that few are better-placed today to know the ins and outs of Monotype's archives than Nicholas. Plus as that forum no longer exists, it's not accessible to anyone not in the know, so I would like to keep it. (I only stumbled across it through looking up comments on Devroye's page which quotes it.) If you want I can just put it on the talk page with the Cyril Burt info. I could cite it from Devroye, but that's a weak solution since all he's doing is quoting the forum thread.

Otherwise have a good Christmas holiday and thanks for the feedback. Blythwood (talk) 13:20, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Most of the issues above have been handled, and it sounds like the issue with reference 19 will fall under the "recognized expert" clause of WP:SPS, so I'm going to go ahead and pass this. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:08, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: - Brilliant. None of the things I was thinking of adding are that important, so that all sounds great. The one thing I need to do now is consolidate the Heiderhoff reference which I need to look up the reference code for. It's the same article; enough of the article is on Google Books to get the gist but the book is probably more accessible for the serious so I wanted to have both cited. Do you think this process (this is my first GA nom) has given me sufficient experience to start doing reviews myself? If am planning to reciprocate by contributing to that. Blythwood (talk) 18:21, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, please do. The GA process greatly needs more good reviewers. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:44, 1 January 2016 (UTC)