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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 00:18, 29 March 2008.

Canons of page construction

[edit]

Nominator --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 02:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
    • Egger, Willi reference needs last access date
    • Carreras, Fabian - is that a book also? If so it needs publisher information and date published, as well as a page for the information cited.
    • The Rosarivo Raul Divinia cite that is currently ref 12 needs a page number to the citation.
Links check out fine. Ealdgyth - Talk 05:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did the first one. The Fabian Carreras ones appear to be web articles. --ÐeadΣyeДrrow (Talk | Contribs) 05:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rosarivo's book is out of print. Very unlikely that we can find a page number. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 17:01, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed Carreras's web cite. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the information it is sourcing, can it be sourced to the ref following it? It's not so controversial that I'm going to screech about this, but it'd be nice to source the information completely. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I found 2 pdfs that seem to corroborate cites 10 and 12, figured we could replace them since those don't have page numbers.
The English one looks fine enough to me, no clue on the French, I took Latin. I'm thinking that's an editorial decision. I do note that the second one looks to come from Project Gutenburg? Ealdgyth - Talk 02:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments

Some piddly little points

  • I don't think there should be an "and" between van der Graaf and Rosario.
  • colon after "connection" in the second paragraph?
  • one p for one page. pp for more I think.
  • one only of your refs has the title not italicised.
  • the very last sentence before the box on Renner seems clumsy. I mean the phrase that says "according to Christopher Burke".
  • Why is Renner, alone of all the quotations, in a box? Fainites barley 21:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:53, 16 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. From the article title I was expecting a more global perspective. The article deals only with European canons of page construction. What about canons in other cultures? I have seen just enough Japanese books to recognize that there are canons of page construction for Japanese books. Probably they exist also in Arabic, Chinese, and Sanskrit. I suggest either rename the article, or add significant content from outside Europe. --Una Smith (talk) 02:40, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose see final comment.
  • For a couple of reasons, the first sentence seems awkward to me. Suggest perhaps: "The canons of page construction are a set of principles that scholars in the field of book design use to describe the ways that the margins, type areas (print spaces), and page proportions of medieval books may have been designed." Ling.Nut (talk) 14:47, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Awkward sentence + unnecessary text. "According to Fabián Carreras" Carreras not mentioned again in article & has no article of his own. Unnecessary, delete. Tighten text/improve coherence as follows:
I made the above changes to the text, and have stricken them through. Ling.Nut (talk) 09:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Cquotes generally not appropriate, as per WP:MOSQUOTE. Certainly the quote in the WP:LEAD doesn't qualify for cquotes or blockquotes; it isn't more than 4 lines long. The quote farther down in the text should probably be in blockquotes rather than cquotes, again as per WP:MOSQUOTE (though I like cquotes too) Ling.Nut (talk) 10:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • How did a Hans Kayser quote come to be attributed to Jan Tschichold in the first cquote (and see about cquotes above)? At least that's how the sentence structure makes it seem, given that the colon before the quote comes directly after mention of Kayser.. Ling.Nut (talk) 12:47, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Anachronism: "has been used in book design, in manuscripts, and incunabula, mostly in those produced between 1550 and 1770". No incunabula after 1501. Recheck source and reword for clarity. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • leaning toward Oppose. The "Current applications" section raises 1b concerns: it's a one-liner with a large blockquote.. and the blockquote isn't really a "Current application" as advertised. It says (or seems to say) that the author, while favoring wide loower margins, does not suggest the use of the golden canon or any other canon. In addition, I'm not sure that the relationship between the text and the illustration is explained well in every case. Finally, I take on board Una Smith's 1b concerns as well. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:48, 21 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. :-) Probably many things need to be clarified and/or expanded, in my opinion.
  • For example, the first sentence of the article is now merely a sentence fragment, since "...of medieval books may have been designed" was removed. Do you want to say something about "historical reconstruction" instead? I mean, you could make that fragment grammatical by simply removing the words "..the ways that". However, in my view the resulting sentence would suggest that the Canons of page construction apply to ... all books. I wonder if more work on the rest of the text is warranted as well. I need to spend some more time looking at that.
  • I still have problems with the relationship of the illustrations to the text. I see how Image:Golden canon of page construction.svg (the one with a circle on the left and a grid on the right) relates to the long Tschichold quote that begins "In figure 5...". However, it took me three readings to figure that out, and I'm not especially stupid (tho my wife might argue that point ;-) ). That illustration is a good one, but its explication need to connect a few more dots (figuratively, not literally). Just below that, I'm still trying to work out the relationship between Image:Tschichold medieval canon.svg and the text... I suggest the following:
  1. Number the figures. I know there's probably a Wikipedia guideline somewhere or other that poopoos on that practice as a general principle... and as a general rule, I would agree. But we're getting into some finer layers of explanation here, and extra measures are called for. WP:IAR privileges clarity over the letter of the... guidelines. :-)
  2. Remove the words "In figure 5..." from Tschichold's quote. Replace them with "In figure..." and the newly-added number for the corresponding Wikipedia illustration.. in square brackets of course. I know there's probably a Wikipedia [...copy every word my explanation above].
  3. Work on "connecting the dots" by drawing explicit connections between the text and the illustrations.
  • I still have 1b concerns... the section needs to be clarified, in my opinion... or dropped? Are these canons still in widespread use? If not, say so explicitly in the body text (as opposed to indirectly, within a quote) and cite it to a reliable source. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks for the very useful and pertinent feedback. I will continue working on this over the next days. The canons are still used and taught in the context of book design. FYI, several books (used in the article as references) are specifically based on these canons, (The Elements of Typographical Style, The Form of the Book, On book design). ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 05:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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