Talk:Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Harbin

Feedback from New Page Review process

I left the following feedback for the creator/future reviewers while reviewing this article: Hey there! Hope you're having a great day. Thank you for contributing to Wikipedia with your article. I'm happy to inform you that your article has adhered to Wikipedia's policies, so I've marked it as reviewed. Have a fantastic day for you and your family!

✠ SunDawn ✠ (contact) 07:41, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Harbin/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Rjjiii (talk · contribs) 04:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

It may be a few days before I begin a proper review. Let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like an extra pair of eyes on. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:14, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

1. Well-written

• The amount of quoted material disrupts reading for me. The already large quote blocks are doubled in size because they contain the original Russian. The article could provide the views of Nikolai Paderin without directly quoting him, or at least not to that extent.
• There are several things in the lead that are cryptic without reading the article, following links, or both. Questions that I had included:
  • How is it lost?
  • Who are the Harbin Russians?
  • Why was it destroyed by the Red Guards?
• Some of the language is complicated to the point that it becomes difficult to follow. A few examples:
  • Priest Alexander Zhuravsky founded the first Orthodox church when he arrived at the site of construction in February 1898, which was located first in an abandoned fanza, and with the onset of cold weather in a specially built barracks.
  • The solemn laying of the church took place on October 1, 1899 on the feast of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
  • With the lifting of the siege, the construction of the Novogorodnoye temple was resumed, for which utensils, iconostasis and iconostasis icons were sent from Russia.
• There are some bits of writing that I can't glean any clear information from:
  • Harbin engineer Alexei Levteev observed the exact observance of the project on the site.
  • Selected wood was used for the quality of construction work.

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:27, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

2. Verifiable with no original research

2a Yes, references are in a proper section.

Coming back later to do spot checks, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:28, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Spot checks:

Source review is for this version of the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Saint_Nicholas_Cathedral,_Harbin&oldid=1174498601 I'm using machine translation for the Russian sources as I don't speak the language.

• [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20170807152314/https://abc.vvsu.ru/books/up_kult_zhiznj_ros_emigr_v_kitaje/page0003.asp The Wikipedia article seems to include a direct translation of content from this source. The second sentence of the article and several lines under "Construction" appear in almost the exact formatting and wording in machine translation. Compare:
  • ...located in the center of Cathedral Square, in the upper part of the Nangan district (at the highest point of the city).
  • ...located in the center of the square, located at the top of the Nangan district - the highest point of the entire city.
  • by the decree of the Holy Synod of February 29, 1908 was transformed into a cathedral
  • By decree of the Synod, on February 29, 1908, it was transformed into a cathedral.
• [9] https://web.archive.org/web/20150412165857/http://abc.vvsu.ru/Books/up_kult_zhiznj_ros_emigr_v_kitaje/page0003.asp This seems to be a chapter from a textbook hosted by a Russian university. All the specific dates and titles in the paragraph are verified.  Done
• [10] https://web.archive.org/web/20170409021059/http://www.pravmir.ru/v-rasseyanii/ Quote is present in this form. This is verified and good on criteria 2, but the translation prose needs a copyedit; some translated sentences read very strange, like "If I may say so, it was the father of all the churches of the diocese and was honored by all of them.".  Done
• [15] https://web.archive.org/web/20171226131407/https://secretmag.ru/cases/stories/china.htm Quote is present. A suggestion only would be for a citation like this to use the |quote= and |trans-quote= parameters to make it easier to verify.

2b

This needs a source:

• "In 1941, the Monument to the fighters against the Comintern was erected on Cathedral Square, in the immediate vicinity of the cathedral."

2c

None that I saw.

2d

Copyright violations noted above. I don't have access to the book source, but I'm curious as to how close the Wikipedia article is to a translation there, mainly because when checking the sources I noticed that the NPOV issues I saw were all sections cited to the book. Is the book so non-neutral that it's not a reliable source? Or is the article just hedging too close to the book's wording? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:38, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

4. Neutral

There are subjective statements in the article like:  Done

• marvelous outlines
• The solemn laying

Also, the heavy usage of quotes gives a lot of weight to those voices. From WP:NPOV:

• "The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial, formal tone."
• "[...] quotes, criticisms, or news reports related to one subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic."

5. Stable

Yes, it's stable. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:27, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

6. Illustrated

• File:Harbin 1940 st.nicolas.jpg is public domain. It is tagged public domain for its country of origin (China), but it is missing the URAA tag for the United States. Alt text is missing.
• File:Никольский собор (Харбин).jpg is non-English text only? The file is tagged as "own work" and creative commons, but this can't be right unless the author of the text is also the photographer and uploader? Alt text is missing, and for this file would be the entire plaque, possibly translated.
• File:哈尔滨伏尔加庄园中的圣•尼古拉大教堂.jpg is a freely licensed photograph relevant to the article. Alt text is missing.

Overall

Stopping the review after I found potential copyright violations in the spot checks. I cannot pass this GA review due mainly to:

• Issues with the prose including obtuse wording and an overuse of quoted material.
• Potential copyright issues.
• A lack of impartial tone.

Good luck in the future, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:41, 5 November 2023 (UTC)