Talk:Vaillancourt Fountain

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Preliminary thoughts on GA potential

This looks close to ready for GA. The Bono bit is very interesting.

• Lead looks good.
• Haven't checked for completeness, but this seems likely to have covered "main aspects"
• The footnoting for "The fountain has been considered controversial since its construction, and criticism of it has continued over the years" is so extensive that you might consider joining them into one footnote a la some of the notes at e.g. MIND MGMT (36, 40). This isn't a GA criterion though, just a side suggestion.
• The one-sentence paragraph in "Critical reaction" might be combined with another per WP:LAYOUT
• Images are relevant and properly tagged.
• A GA reviewer may object that there are no citations in the "Location" section. These aren't technically required for GA here (there are no quotations/stats/interpretations there), but you'd save yourself some potential hassle if any citation could be added there.

I'd say this is close enough that you should nominate it whenever you're ready! -- Khazar2 (talk) 11:52, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. The problem with footnote joining is that most of those sources are used multiple times in the article, and so joining them for this footnote would mean replicating the citation info, which I generally am not keen on doing.

I have been wondering whether the paragraph regarding the Remembrance Day bombing and Bono's reaction belongs here at all. It has nothing to do with the San Francisco location or the fountain or the sculptor, unlike the rest of the material in this section. It could maybe be moved to The Joshua Tree Tour article, but I wanted to check with Cullen328 first and he was previously away when I was working on this. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:43, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Not hearing any objections, I have now removed this. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:38, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

I reviewed this for DYK, and the only thing I thought was missing was a bit of context for the phrase "Québec libre", there's no mention of the separatiste movement. Might be good to have a sentence of explanation for non-NA readers. The Interior (Talk) 00:47, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Research credit

Although she hasn't yet edited this article, my wife Debra, User:ChesPal, assisted by doing online research, especially on the sculptor, Armand Vaillancourt. I want to thank her and acknowledge her work. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 18:34, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

We thank the both of you, it's a subject and an article that shows what happens when several different artistic-political viewpoints intersect each other ... Wasted Time R (talk) 10:41, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

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

Reviewer: BrandonWu (talk · contribs) 22:49, 24 April 2014 (UTC) GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

Hello! I'm BrandonWu and I will review this fantastic article. I will try to work with this article during a 7 day time frame! Cheers! Note, I am part of the GA Recruitment Centre and my mentor (Figureskatingfan) may jump in at times to help!

Review

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   See below for a prose review!

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

   Great lead, layout, etc.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   See below for a source review as well!

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   Major aspects covered!

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   Pictures are good, when the future FAN occurs, you should add more images, but for GA the images are good.

Since I live only about 30 miles away, I can take more photos some time soon. What would you like to see? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I have added portraits of Bono and Diane Feinstein, the two people most associated with the graffiti controversy. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:07, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

1. B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

   ^^^^^^^Same idea.

2. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   So far so good! WooHoo! • Talk to me! 23:00, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Prose Review

Lead The Lead is excellent, and it seems to sum up all the details of the article! Great job!

Location Also looks great!

Design and construction Section looks very thorough, good job!

Critical reaction

• "Hoving, in his dedication speech..."

Who is Hoving? I see no mention of him anywhere in the article.

Thomas Hoving is first mentioned and wikilinked in the third paragraph of the "Design and construction" section.Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:04, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

• "its very outrageousness and extravagance are part of its challenge"

It should be it's not its. :)

With all due respect, "it's" is a contraction for "it is" or "it has", neither of which make sense in this context. "Its" is correct here. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:04, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Other than that, good job!

U2 concert Looked through it, and it looks good.

Proposals to demolish

• "In 2004, San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin renewed the call to demolish the fountain.[9] During the debate, the water was turned off"

This sentence looks good, but do you mind changing it to something like "In 2004, San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin renewed the call to demolish the fountain.[9] During the debate, the water was turned off in the fountain.

I rewrote the sentence to make it clear that it was the water to the fountain was turned off. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:06, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I also made a correction, making it clear that the water to the fountain had been turned off for several years before Peskin's proposal to demolish it. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Great job with this article. I'm assuming that Figureskatingfan will also do a prose review of her own (2 reviews for 1), so I will make a section for her.

Figureskatingfan's prose review

• Images: I disagree slightly with Brandon about the amount of images here. For GAs, the amount you have is fine, although perhaps you could add an image of Bono.

I added images of both Bono and Diane Feinstein. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:12, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

• In the "Critical reaction" section, I have a suggestion that is both about the prose and the references. You include 9 references to support your first sentence, about the fountain's controversy. Personally, I think that if you can support your assertions with just one or two sources, it's enough to cite the best one, even if multiple sources state the same thing. Is there a source that specifically states that the fountain was controversial since its construction? If so, that would be the best source to support it. If not, I suggest that you don't specifically support it, since it can be argued that the statement is self-evident. However, I also suggest that you utilize those sources more effectively, and summarize their points in the article. For example, you could use Vaillancourt's quote in ref 2, in which he states, "I gave almost five years of my life to create that. ... I'm going to fight like a devil to preserve that work." Or something like that. If you did that for all those sources, you might be able to expand it more. Plus, your readers aren't going to go through every reference to see if they support your statements, so you need to tell them what they state. This gets to how you utilize your sources, which can be improved. On the other hand, however, this exercise, IMO, isn't something that's necessary for this article to pass to GA, which as you know, has lower standards than FAs. I still think you should think about it, though, if you want this article to be as improved as possible.

When I was first writing this article, I had been involved with another article where objections were raised to saying that the topic (I forget which) had been widely considered controversial. So I now see that I engaged in overkill with that many references saying "controversial". I will go through and trim it way back. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I trimmed it back from nine to five references about it being "controversial". Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:12, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not sure how I feel about the Bono quote; it may be too long. I wonder if you could omit some of it, and paraphrase the content about his motivations for vandalizing the sculpture and what he says about "tour-madness" (whatever that means) and keep what he says about it being "dumb". I think it's fine for GA, but I dunno if the entire quote is necessary. Again, just a suggestion.

I agree that the quote is excessively long. Another editor added it and I thought it was too long then. I didn't want to step on that editor's toes, but this review gives me a good reason. I will trim it way back. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:43, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I trimmed the quote considerably, eliminated the quote box and incorporated it into the prose. I don't want this section to be "all about Bono" but more about the incident and the response by several notable people to it. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:15, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

In all, good work. What an interesting chapter in the history of S.F. and in the history of U2. Lots of fun to read. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:37, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your changes; I think they're good ones and that they enhance the article. The added images are good and I like the improvements to the controversy section and the cuts to the Bono quote. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 13:11, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Source Review

Source 1,2,6,9,10,11,19,25

• It seems to me that these sources are all from the San Francisco Chronicle. Since this source makes up almost one-third of the sources, are they reliable? (See:Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#News_organizations)

I see no reason to question the reliability of the various articles from the San Francisco Chronicle. They span many years and were written by a variety of reporters and notable critics. The Chronicle is widely considered the "newspaper of record" for San Francisco history and culture. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:54, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

(Same applies to all other sources that are newspapers, or news organizations.)

With all those news sources eliminated, there seem to be only 12 sources that are not news. I feel like People may not be a reliable source, so is there any other reliable sources that could be used for Ref 23?)

I will check for another source substantiating the claim that U2 paid for the cleanup of Bono's vandalism. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:56, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Rest of the sources look fine to me, but I think Christine will. Also, I'm guessing that @Cullen328: is busy IRL, so I guess he will have to be making a lot of changes tomorrow/the weekend! :P WooHoo! • Talk to me! 23:11, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Figureskatingfan's source review

That's right, I will! ;) See below.

• Ref 2: Personally, if the reader has to pay a fine to read the article, I don't link it, but that's a personal choice. At the very least, you should include the |subscription=yes; parameter in the ref template.
• Ref 9b: Doesn't support the Frankenstein quote; rather, ref 10 does.
• Ref 21: Tripod isn't the most reliable of sources. However, in the interest of comprehensiveness, and if you can't find the same information elsewhere, I'm inclined to accept it.

Other than these small items, everything looks good. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 20:34, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Great job on the article! I have gone ahead and passed it! WooHoo! • Talk to me! 23:25, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

• Like. Congrats on the GA! --Another Believer _(Talk) 02:32, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

No mention of Bullitt? I don't have a lot of facts, but...

I was surprised when watching the Blu-ray of Bullitt recently that when Frank Bullitt (Steve Mcqueen) visits his girlfriend (Jacqueline Bisset), she's in a sort of architectural studio, working on ... the Fountain. She asks him to look up water flow volumes and rated pipe, and a small model of the Fountain is nearby. Apparently, design was underway on the Vaillancourt Fountain and the film crew was able to use a mock-up for their location shooting.

Wonder if anyone knows more?

• http://www.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/best-san-francisco-movie/BestOf?oid=2142041
• http://aboutinthecity.blogspot.com/2009/08/vailllancourt-fountain.html

David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 23:52, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

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