Talk:Guy Peterson

Image use

While adding images to article is often a good thing, adding too many images can be counterproductive per WP:NOTGALLERY and WP:IUP#Adding images to articles. For example, Wikipedia might use a book cover image for primary identification purposes in a stand-alone article about a book, or perhaps as an example of an illustrators work in an article about an illustrator, but the way the two covers are being used in the "Bibliography and media" section seems a bit unnecessary. If the books are Wikipedia notable enough for stand-alone articles to be written about them, then the covers could be used in those article. In this article, however, they seem out of place and are not needed in my opinion.

Same kinda goes for the "Selected work" gallery as well. It would be better to incorporate these into the body of the article near relevant article content and then use a template such a Template:Commons category to let the reader know that more images of this type can be found on Commons. There's really no need for two images of the same building/house or of the same representative style of technique; so, pick the ones for the better known examples discussed in the article, incorporate them into the article and then remove the rest. -- Marchjuly (talk) 14:22, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Appreciate the comments on the books. The "Four Florida Moderns" book image was already being used in Wikimedia. Can take or leave them.

As far as gallery of selected work ... it would seem that artists, and architects, are among those who should use 'gallery' more than anyone (as in 'art gallery'). Trying to describe an architects' work without visually showing the evolution of his design through multiple images would be near-impossible. I've always wondered why, if the gallery function exists, people like Frank Lloyd Wright, don't have an extensive gallery of works in their page (except that many of Wright's works have their own pages). So perhaps, 'gallery' really works best for people like Peterson, who have a plethora of works that deserve to be seen, but individually can't justify their own pages. Check out Frank Gehry, Santiago Calatrava, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. How can you possibly explain that stuff without seeing it in their galleries?? What makes Wikipedia so much better than a book is that you can click on a gallery image and see it in full-monitor-size HD (without the need to navigate to Commons)!! Frankly, I think every significant architect should have image galleries of some type in their articles, they would improve them greatly!! If not for a purpose like this ... then why have 'image galleries' at all?Architecttype (talk) 14:50, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

The gallery seems to work OK here and Wikipedia:Image use policy says…a gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. Theroadislong (talk) 17:03, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Why cannot individual images supporting text do the job in this article? I have removed the images with no apparent connection with the subject.SovalValtos (talk) 17:32, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

I would be happy with that or a reduced gallery with subjects not mentioned in the article removed. Theroadislong (talk) 17:45, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

For the sake of brevity, I had removed his awards, which mentioned all of the buildings in the gallery. By reinstituting the list, they are all included. Voila!!Architecttype (talk) 17:51, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

With the removal of the gallery and addition of individual images the article now looks a complete mess, the awards section is sprawling and unreferenced, also please note we don't use external links in the body of the article. Also please don't attack other editors and assume good faith. Theroadislong (talk) 18:29, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

The problem is the complete inconsistency with which the rules are applied. I'm looking at dozens of other architect articles, none of which receive the attention of this one. Why? Is there some subjective judgment being made somewhere? This guy deserves a gallery, but that guy does not? All we ask is consistency and fairness in the process. Check Max Strang for example. His list is far more ridiculous and sprawling than this one. Not one word or edit, however. Someone has a bone to pick, methinks. Architecttype (talk) 18:39, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

other crap exists is not a good argument, I have tagged the Max Strang article which is VERY poorly sourced indeed. Theroadislong (talk) 19:17, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Ok. Willing to work with you. Can all the AIA honors be sourced with one link (i.e. footnotes 34 and 35)? Or must each and every award be footnoted? I can do this, but it will make it a complete mess and double (possibly triple) the size of the reference list. Then the article will likely be criticized for being too long. Ideas?Architecttype (talk) 19:53, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm not certain we need a giant list of awards, sourced or not, are there some notable ones (ie those that have their own Wikipedia articles) that can be picked out? Theroadislong (talk) 20:03, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

Still working in this area (or at least I was). I get it ... "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down". I have an interest in these pages being good because the discipline is important to me. To see the work being compressed down into insignificance in order to satisfy a hornets nest of wiki-bullies is hardly worth the effort. All of the awards are important, particularly in the trade. Watching this process for the first time, it seems to work like this: "This person is worth "X" amount of space, and certainly no photos. We need to shrink it down to no more than three vertical inches" Born. Died. Architect. Done. Architecttype (talk) 20:34, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

OK I'm taking it off my watch list you clearly don't assume any good faith on my part. Theroadislong (talk) 20:57, 29 December 2018 (UTC)

@Architecttype. Please don't remove or WP:BLANK talk page discussions, especially when they include posts made by others. If you're no longer interested in responding, then you don't have to; however, removing an entire thread like you did here may give others the impression that you claiming some kind of ownership over the page or trying to discourage others from participating. If you'd like to remove one of your own posts or change something you previously posted, then please follow WP:REDACT. If the talk page starts to get too big, archiving can be done to keep things more manageable; however, the page is nowhere near that point at the moment.

FWIW, I wasn't suggesting that all of the images need to be removed, only that image use be more selective and tied into the article content. A smaller gallery of images might have even been workable, but redundant images of the same structure or type of structure probably weren't necessary if there wasn't corresponding article content particularly related to said images. A balance between article content needs to be found because in its most basic form a Wikipedia article is intended to be textual content supported by selected relevant images, not the other way around.

A Wikipedia article is really only intended to be written in a summary style; so, not every bit of information (even verifiable information) about the subject needs to be included per WP:NOTEVERYTHING. So, in many cases, links to other existing articles as well as links to other existing pages are used to avoid articles becoming too dense with detail. In some cases, this might mean that each and every article on a particular subject matter are not formatted or laid out exactly the same way, but that's OK because of WP:OTHERCONTENT. So, just because something is being done on another similar article, does not be mean is also should done on this article, and vice versa. It could also mean that it shouldn't be being done on the other article as well, but only that nobody has noticed it and gotten around to fixing it as of yet.

Theroadislong's point about the awards is one often made on this type of article. Once again, article content tends to try and focus on main awards and honors which appear to be Wikipedia notable and encyclopedically relevant to reader. Of course, there may be disagreements over this, but these disagreements are worked out through discussion. Referring to others as a "Wiki-bully" just because they don't agree with your vision for the article is not helpful and might actually be seen as a personal attack against these others. This is exactly the type of thing I tried to advise you to avoid doing in my response to your Teahouse question because it's not conducive to constructive talk page discussion or collaborative editing at all. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:29, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I have learned much today ... and have posted thoughts about it in a thread on my user talk page. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Architecttype)Architecttype (talk) 01:29, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

• Comment:The above discussion has been moved/copied-and-pasted by Architecttype to WT:RETENTION#Case Study: Why Wikipedia Loses Editors .... It's probably best to keep everything in one place, but comments directly related to the specifics of this article (i.e., which and how many images should be used, how they should be formatted/incorporated, which awards should be mentioned, etc.) are probably better off kept here if possible, while more general comments about editor retention and Wikipedia seem more suited for WT:RETENTION. It might be hard to keep the two separate, but I think we should try. -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:31, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Images revisited

@SovalValtos: I tend to agree with Theroadislong earlier comment about a reduced image gallery or something similar being preferable to current layout. The images could then probably could be inserted at the end of the "Personal life, career, and influences" section. Another possibility might be to use {{Multiple image}} and set the |direction= to horizontal. A rough example of each is given below.

gallery markup

• 
  Spencer House
• 
  Revere Quality Institute House (Original house - Paul Rudolph and Ralph Twitchell. Companion House - Guy Peterson)
• 
  Sarasota Memorial Hospital Critical Care Center
• 
  Durbin House
• 
  Theisen House
• 
  Anaclerio House

multiple image markup

Spencer House

Revere Quality Institute House (Original house - Paul Rudolph and Ralph Twitchell. Companion House - Guy Peterson)

Sarasota Memorial Hospital Critical Care Center

Durbin House

Theisen House

Anaclerio House

The above just use a very basic markup and probably can be tweaked for sizing, spacing and caption purposes, though the "multiple image" template looks like it might be a little easier to tweak. -- Marchjuly (talk) 11:28, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

I think galleries work best when there is a theme that they illustrate. With an architect a possible theme might be their development of style. It would need sourced text as commentary. So far the images have as caption just the name of the building. The one that has more in the caption 'Revere Quality Institute House' does not identify which is the relevant 'Companion House'.SovalValtos (talk) 15:58, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Article Update

Images of books deleted. Image gallery deleted. Number of images reduced considerably. Honors and awards footnoted. Architecttype (talk) 21:41, 29 December 2018 (UTC)