Talk:Singapore Stone/GA2

GA hold

This is a fascinating article! (I became enraged reading it, too - mowing down priceless antiquities!) I think a few changes will make it even better, however:

• The Singapore Stone is a fragment of a large sandstone slab recovered after the slab, which originally stood at the mouth of the Singapore River, was blown up in 1843. - confusing opening to the uninformed reader like myself - could even more context be added about the original slab, such as its antiquity and the fact that it was blown up to make way for building projects, etc.?

• The Merlion statue previously stood at an extension of spot where the slab was located. - I don't quite follow this sentence.

• Is there a print or painting of the Singapore River from around the time of the discovery that could be used instead of the 2005 picture that would give more of the feeling of the jungle?

• It is customary to place the citation for a quote, especially a block quote, right after the quoted text so that the attribution is unequivocal. Could you move the citations? Also, some of the large quotations didn't have citations. I have placed tags next to those.

• Some of the large quotations overwhelm the reader - I would suggest cutting them down a bit, summarizing them in the prose of the text, and removing one or two. This is particularly the case with the Abdullah and Begbie quotations.

If you have any questions about this review, please feel free to ask me on my talk page. Also, please let me know when to re-review the article. Thanks again! Awadewit | talk 23:19, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Awadewit. Thanks for taking the time to review the article. My responses are as follows:

• Introductory paragraphs – I've revised them.
• Merlion statue sentence – Is this sentence very unclear? It means that there used to be a statue of an imaginary creature called a merlion which was near but not exactly at the original site of the sandstone slab. Rather, an extension from the site was constructed and the statue placed on that extension. The statue has since been moved elsewhere.

• I think that I'm getting hung up on the "extension" part. Perhaps you could make two sentences and just explain a bit more like you did here? Awadewit | talk 05:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

• Image of Singapore River – Haven't yet located a suitable image of the Singapore River in the early 19th century, but have found an 1825 map of Singapore which actually shows Rocky Point where the sandstone slab was located, so I've used that instead.

• I think this is a better image. Awadewit | talk 05:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

• Footnotes – Have fixed the missing footnotes, which was the result of text being moved around. I've put the footnote numbers at the end of the sentences just before the quotations rather than at the end of the quotations. There was a {{fact}} tag after the short quotation in the first paragraph of the "J.W. Laidlay: Kawi?" section, but I've removed it because the relevant reference is the one the end of that paragraph. It seems unnecessary to have two footnotes to the same source in the same paragraph.

• Since it is a quotation, the note has to be repeated. Quotation citations have to be unambiguous. You can double it up, though with the "ref name" format. Awadewit | talk 05:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

• Long quotations – Is it really necessary to reduce the length of the Abdullah and Begbie quotations? I don't think they're too excessive, and they lend a certain flavour of authenticity to the article.

• I think that it is necessary to reduce the quotations. Wikipedia articles generally aim to be summaries of secondary sources, not replications of primary sources. Quotations do add flavor, but a large proportion of the text of this article is quotation. I think we need to cut down on that a bit. Awadewit | talk 05:39, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I look forward to your further comments. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 00:49, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Awadewit. OK, I think I've addressed all your suggestions:

• Merlion statue sentence – this has been rephrased. Hope it's clearer now.
• Footnotes – I've added a reference after the short quotation in the first paragraph of the "J.W. Laidlay: Kawi?" section.
• Long quotations – these have been summarized.

I've also carried out some minor cleaning up. Hope it's ready for GA status now! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 02:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• I'm still seeing a lot of long quotations. This is a short article - as such, it should not have more than one or two long quotations. I'm worried that too much of the article is quotation and not enough is prose explanation, especially since most of the quotations are from nineteenth-century sources, if for no other reason than we need to have our articles dominated by modern English. Awadewit | talk 02:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• I've shortened the two long quotations that you mentioned specifically, and don't think the others are especially long or obscure. I'd rather quote for accuracy rather than paraphrase too much and change the meaning unintentionally. There's nothing in either the Manual of Style or Good article criteria about the suggested optimal number of quotations relative to the overall length of the article. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 03:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• I've asked for a second opinion since I feel rather strongly about this, but it is not a situation I have encountered in reviewing a GAC article before. Awadewit | talk 09:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

• OK, thanks. Let's see what the second reviewer says about the matter. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Essjay controversy's GA nomination passed despite more than half the article being quotes. In my opinion, the quotes in Singapore Stone are neither too long nor excessive. Having too many quotations should not be a reason to fail an article's GA nomination, unless the quotations are really excessive (which is not the case here) and cause other problems that are within the purview of the GA criteria (if this is the case here, please explain what problems the quotes cause). This should not be considered an official second opinion; although I have not made any significant contributions to this article, as a Singaporean, I want to see Singapore Stone achieve GA status. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 01:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

• 1) I do feel the quotes are excessive.
• 2) I feel that excessive quotation violates the GA criteria stipulating "well-written" articles (1).
• 3) I feel that having so many quotations, written in nineteenth-century English, is more difficult for the reader to understand than a summary in twenty-first century English with a few select quotations.
• 4) Wikipedia articles are not a repository of primary source materials - that is the function of wikisource (see WP:NOT#REPOSITORY). Awadewit | talk 05:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

• I don't think there has been an excessive use of quotes. The quotes that have been used have been carefully chosen and supported by explanatory text.
• The quotations are from 19th-century sources, but they are not obscure and should be readily understandable to the general reader.
• In any case, the quotations are not long enough to belong to Wikisource. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:45, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

GA review second opinion

Congratulations Jacklee on producing such an interesting and well-sourced article—it was a pleasure to read—and also to Awadewit for such a thorough and comprehensive GA review.

Regarding the quotations issue, from the relevant Wikipedia guidelines (at WP:QUOTE and WP:MOSQUOTE) there are really only two situations where quotations are recommended for use in an article:

• using a unique phrase or term from someone’s speech or writing.
• dealing with a potentially controversial statement.

This does not by any means bar quotes from being used in other circumstances, but I feel that given the number and length of the quotes used in Singapore Stone, they do tend to detract from the focus of the article and should be reworked or preferably removed. If we look at them dispassionately, they contain nothing that cannot be summarised and written into the surrounding paragraphs... and therefore, for the most part, add nothing to the article. The Crawfurd quote is the most informative, containing as it does his description of the slab's appearance; this interesting insight is certainly worth retaining in some form (for example: John Crawfurd, a resident of Singapore, described the slab in his journal on 3 February 1822 as being "a rude mass, and formed of the one-half of a great nodule..."). Perhaps something along these lines can be done with the others?

If it is necessary to preserve the quotations, I would agree with Awadewit that, once they have been worked into the text, they could be moved to Wikiquote and a template added to the article to direct interested readers there. As an addendum to this, it's worth pointing out that if you feel these quotations do not belong on Wikiquote, it's certainly questionable as to whether they should be in the article in the first place.

Although I've recommended that the article loses the quotes, I'll mention a couple of additional points that may be useful in the future. When quotations are used, they absolutely must have, at the end, an inline cite—this in itself is a GA fail criterion. Also, the {{cquote}} template is not intended for use in Wikipedia articles, being designed for callouts; for long quotes the 'blockquote' markup is recommended instead.

Thank you both for your hard work, and I hope this helps. All the best, EyeSerene^TALK 10:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I'll offer a third opinion: I believe that the quotes are appropriate in this case, and are not excessive. I do however agree with the criticism of the use of the {{cquote}} template, and would suggest changing that to use the {{quote}} template, along with, of course, proper attribution of the quotes as EyeSerene quite correctly points out. --Malleus Fatuarum (talk) 15:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

• As there seems to be no clear agreement on this and the article is good in every other respect, I would like to propose that the editor fix the {{cquote}}s and the attribution tags in the prose and then it can be passed. Awadewit | talk 16:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The {{cquote}} tags were inserted by another editor, and I've reverted that good faith change. Actually the footnote numbers appear before the quotations (e.g., "According to one W.H. Read, who arrived in Singapore in 1841:^[15]"), but if you all think they should be placed at the end of the quotations I'll fix that. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I mentioned moving the citations to the end of the quotations before. It really is a standard practice. I'm not just making that up. :) Awadewit | talk 16:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

• That sounds like a good resolution. It really is quite a nice article, and I'm sure that the editors appreciate your help in getting it to GA Awadewit. --Malleus Fatuarum (talk) 17:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I won't argue with this outcome - there's no doubt that this is indeed a good article, and fully deserves recognition as such. I still believe the quotations are slightly excessive, but not to the extent that, with everything else the article has going for it, it should fail GA. Nice work all ;) EyeSerene^TALK 18:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, I've shifted the footnote numbers to the ends of the quotations. Thanks to all reviewers who commented, and especially to Awadewit for taking the time to carefully review the article! — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 01:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the concerns raised about large amount of quoted material in this article. In particular, footnotes 22 and 25 contain rather long quoted passages. In footnote 22 there may be a copyright issue, because the newer translation is probably still under copyright by OUP, and I'm not convinced that fair use applies to such a long excerpt, even though the translation is a derivative work. Geometry guy 18:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, Geometry guy, if a number of reviewers agree with you I'll see what I can do about it. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 20:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

So far, it is 3 out of 4. How many do you want? ;-) Geometry guy 22:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it is, as previous reviewers were talking about the number and length of quotes in the body of the article - or at least I was anyway. I do agree with you about the length of some of the quotes in the footnotes, so it looks like 2 out of 2 so far. :) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I should also point out that as regards footnote 22, two paragraphs out of a substantially longer book dealing with many topics other than the Singapore Stone doesn't seem to me to be excessive. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 23:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Paradoxically that may make the copyright situation more serious, in the light of the "importance" discussion above. Taking legal action for a copyright breach only makes sense if some kind of a financial loss is suffered. Potentially, someone may now be persuaded not to buy the book from which footnote 22 was taken, resulting in a loss of sales. I'm strongly coming round to shortening the footnotes quite drastically. I haven't changed my view on the number and length of quotations in the body of the text, though. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, thanks Malleus, this is also my main concern. Geometry guy 00:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)