Talk:Longfellow House

Longfellow House was a Art and architecture good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
December 18, 2008	Good article nominee	Not listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on April 25, 2008.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow never lived in Minneapolis's Longfellow House (pictured), a two-thirds scale model of his house built by an admirer of his work?

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GA Review

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

Starting GAR Parrot of Doom (talk) 00:23, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. I'll be reviewing this article. I'll try to be clear and concise, please don't be offended if I don't ask nicely - I'm reviewing the article, and not the contributors.

Lead

As per WP:LEAD, "The lead serves both as an introduction to the article below and as a short, independent summary of the important aspects of the article's topic." Several items in the article go unmentioned in the lead. My rule of thumb is to make sure the lead contains a summary of each section of the article.

Early History

"In 1885, Robert "Fish" Jones sold his downtown Minneapolis fish market, and built a zoo on the site where the Basilica of St. Mary stands today." I know the article wikilinks to this man, but I think this section could use a little more information. The reader may want to know what Robert Jones' employ was, and why he built a zoo?
Could you repair the wikilink to the Basilica of St. Mary? Done. BobAmnertiopsis ∴_ChatMe! 04:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"He eventually moved his zoo a few miles south into an area next to the Minnehaha Creek." - is it known why he did this? It isn't strictly important to the GAC process but it may help you expand the article to include such information.
"At the same time, he built a house for himself, styled after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's home." - why did he build the house? What was his reasoning? It would help to expand upon this.
"he lived there for the next 23 years until he closed the zoo, due to complaints from nearby residents" - what were the complaints regarding? Parrot of Doom (talk) 01:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"He agreed to give the house to the City of Minneapolis, but died in 1930 before the transaction was completed" - natural causes, illness - is this known? Would be useful to include.

Longfellow Community Library

"For four years after Jones' death, the house remained vacant, following which the Park Board was deeded the house," - as a reader, I'm uncertain what 'deeded' means. Could you expand upon this?
"The library overcame this circulation drop, so much so that in 1967 the Library Board authorized the construction of a new library in the nearby Wenonah neighborhood." - how did they do this?
"In 1968, Longfellow closed and Nokomis Community Library opened, instantly doubling Longfellow's circulation numbers." - at first glance I don't understand this - the library closed, another opened, and the (closed) library experienced doubled circulation numbers?

The House today

"The House fell into disrepair." - why did this happen?
"it was used by the Saint Paul Jaycees as "Ghost Manor", a haunted house attraction every year at Halloween." - was the house used for this all year around, or just at halloween?
"the House was moved to its current location and renovated." - who moved it, and what were the renovations? Parrot of Doom (talk) 01:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"In 2001 it opened as an interpretive information center, run by the Park Board." - citation needed Done! BobAmnertiopsis ∴_ChatMe! 04:50, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References

All appears fine here, however you may wish to consider using the {{Harvnb}} template for citing books - it will allow you to more easily reference page numbers for books referenced in more than one instance. See Pendle witch trials as a good example of how this works. Parrot of Doom (talk) 01:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the article requires significant expansion to achieve GA status. You should certainly consider a section on the house itself - its dimensions, windows, doors, features, number of rooms, utilities, type of roof, fireplaces, etc. Also commentary on the style of the house, the period in which it was built, is it typical architecture? For an article about a house there is surprisingly little detail on that house. Grammatically and technically I think the article is fine, and certainly a pleasant read, but it isn't detailed enough just yet. Therefore I'm placing it on hold, and giving editors an opportunity to act on these recommendations. Parrot of Doom (talk) 01:10, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Failing due to lack of progress. Parrot of Doom (talk) 22:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]