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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 by User:SandyGeorgia 17:20, 27 November 2008 [1].

Chiprovtsi

[edit]
Nominator(s): Todor→Bozhinov

I spent quite a long time researching for this article and actually writing it, it was like my own September drive. Chiprovtsi is a town of about 2,000, but it compensates its lack of size with some compelling history. The article has had a PR and a GA review which all went pretty well. Most importantly, it has had a copyedit by a native speaker because the brilliant prose was one of the main obstacles I was facing. If you're curious, it looked like this until late September; don't laugh, that was my work also :P It's related to the GA Banat Bulgarians, but they'd hardly make a featured topic all alone... Todor→Bozhinov 12:32, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not thrilled with the writing. Spot check:

  • clumsy word order: "and to the south is again Georgi Damyanovo."
  • Just checking that you're using a minus sign for the temperatures, not an en dash (see MOSNUM).
  • "national border", not "state border".
  • "the average monthly temperature is −1 °C (30.2 °F) to 0 °C (32 °F) in January and 20 °C (68 °F) in July"—why not range for July? And please state the range then convert the range.
  • "The average yearly precipitation is 776–816 millimetres per square kilometre." No, it's not "per" anything.
  • "No mineral springs are present in the municipality." It's as though they might pop in and pop out. "There are no ...".
  • "some of which 150–300 years old"—huh?

I'm inclined on this small sample to say that this should be withdrawn and worked on by you and one or two native speakers, then resubmitted. Our reviewer resources have to be rationed, and this is not a free fix-it page. Tony (talk) 14:08, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. As much as I could, I've introduced the changes suggested above. The prose was copyedited by a native speaker during the PR and to be honest, I don't believe the writing issues are that unsolvable to withdraw the nomination. Personally, I'm ready to work on improving the quality of writing and, of course, all copyeditors are welcome, whether free or against payment. I'd like to get some further feedback before withdrawing this nomination: I don't think it should be speedy failed because of a single criterion. Todor→Bozhinov 15:55, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tony has indeed identified a problem, but I'm not sure it's what he thinks it is. Why does the average monthly temperature is −1 °C (30.2 °F) to 0 °C (32 °F) in January and 20 °C (68 °F) in July have a range for January? We are discussing an average, which should be a specific figure. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:02, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • On the precipitation, he is quite right. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:02, 27 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Err, it was given that way because that's what the source says :) There may have been two different measurements in two different years; whatever it is, the source says "the average January temperature is from minus one to zero degrees Celsius…" I changed it to "or" instead of "from … to", if that helps. Precipitation has been fixed if I've determined correctly what the problem with it was. Todor→Bozhinov 12:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • All non-english sources should give their language in the footnote/reference.
Otherwise sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Note I didn't evaluate the non-English sources, which are the majority of the references. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:17, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I examined the footnotes again and the language is always specified, although there was one occasion where I had to fix that. If the footnote points to a source cited in the references, the language isn't given because the references section already has that information. As for the reliability of the Bulgarian references, the books are all credible academic publications. The web links are mostly municipal-published (the official website, the municipality's development plan and some online registers), and there are some tourist websites and newspapers cited as well, usually for minor and non-controversial stuff. Although you didn't say that, I'd like to clear it out beforehand: I understand that having most references in a foreign language is not the ideal scenario, but quite frankly I don't think it's possible to write a Chiprovtsi article of that size and detail without using mostly Bulgarian sources. Todor→Bozhinov 21:21, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Significant image problem - According to Commons:Freedom of Panorama, Bulgaria only allow for pictures of buildings or artwork in public display to be photographed in non-commercial manner, which is counter to the license requirements for free use on Commons. Thus, these pictures (of the buildings and the museum shot, mostly; the creek and the rugs and the ruins likely are ok) need to be removed from commons and and if still wanting to be used in this article, brought to WP and need to be marked non-Free, and thus may require selecting only one or two of them. --MASEM 20:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • It seems that, except for the infobox image, all the buildings are really old, so their creators have been dead for over 70 years and thus the images are PD. For the picture of the town centre, it's arguable the buildings there are not the main subject of the picture, and thus that too would be PD. Biruitorul Talk 05:26, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Those facts need to be asserted on the image pages. (ideally, using appropriate PD rationale tags). I'm not sure if Freedom of Panorama considers the intent of the picture's subject as part of it, so the town square should still likely be treated as NFC unless can be shown otherwise. --MASEM 02:27, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Question: does the existence of this stupid and never-applied law mean that practically all photos of Bulgaria have to be deleted from Commons and Wikipedia? If so, please bring the issue up over at Commons: this is not a problem that concerns this article only; the law is nation-wide, not Chiprovtsi municipality-wide. My personal opinion is that deleting all the photos would be ridiculous. Legally, yes, the law exists; de facto, it simply doesn't. Todor→Bozhinov 15:17, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • The law is an ass. But I agree - this is one law we should be ignoring. Biruitorul Talk 18:24, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Unfortunately, as a free content encyclopedia, we have to follow the free content guidelines with respect to NFCC. I will place a notice on commons about this, but given the various ages of buildings, it's not a simple sweep of the images. For this FAC, the ones in question need to be moved to non-free to be used. --MASEM 23:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'd safely rely on m:Avoid copyright paranoia here, but I wouldn't mind if someone copies those images to Wikipedia and tags them as fair use: as long as we won't have to lose valuable photos because of a law that is never applied in that respect. Todor→Bozhinov 18:49, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • It's not about copyright, as I noted, the images of buildings can be used for non-commercial purposes so from the legal standpoint, they can be used without any problem on WP. The issue is that they do not meet the goals of WP's free content mission (free as unrestricted distribution rights). They can't be on Commons, period, but they can be used on WP as long as they are given fair rationales. As noted, it looks like only a couple pictures in this article need to be corrected, and I see no problem in keeping these (once moved to WP and given rationales) to help illustrate the article (that is, I will pre-emptively say that once the images are moved and given good rationales, there will be no other image problems with this article). --MASEM 16:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
              • Okay, I uploaded a copy of the square photo to Wikipedia; I tagged it appropriately and now we're using it in the article. However, I won't nominate the Commons file for deletion for the time being, it's just my personal opinion that we have nothing to be afraid of. A short explanation that the law is inapplicable due to the objects being public domain was added to all other photos; they can remain in Commons. Is the image licensing issue sorted out now? Todor→Bozhinov 13:56, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
                • The article is fine for images now. However, again, it is not a legal issue here with the commons image, it is strictly the policy of Commons that the picture of the square cannot be published there since the FoP for Bulgaria is incompatible with the free content policy of Commons. --MASEM 17:50, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I am not a native English speaker but the article is very easy to read because it is logically consistent and coherent. It draws from a very large data base as evident by the sources. The information is organised and thoroughly weeded with the aim to present the most important in encyclopedic form and style. I support the critique above for the annual temperature and precipitation. I don't know the exact remedy, maybe the best will be to look for another source for these data. I suggest giving an English translation of the titles of references in order to give an idea to English speakers about their topics. --Lantonov (talk) 16:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Sadly, the prose is below FA standards. There is much redundancy throughout the article and some long, snaking sentences. Here are some examples taken at random:

  • By the 1630s, the idea of an organized anti-Ottoman revolt had reached the town of Chiprovtsi and in his 1650 account to the senate of the Republic of Venice Petar Parchevich described the long preparations for an armed struggle and the support-seeking visits of his fellow townsmen to the kings of Poland and Austria.
  • The reach of the uprising cannot be exactly determined, but scholars such as S. Damyanov believe it included not only Chiprovtsi and the neighbourhing Kopilovtsi, Klisura and Zhelezna, but also thousands of Bulgarians from the entire Bulgarian northwest, and although the leaders were mostly Catholics, the bulk of the insurgents were Orthodox.
  • The municipal administration is divided into a common administration with "Information Services" and "Financial-economical Activities and Handling of Property" departments and a specialized administration with "Planning and Distribution of the Budget" and "Territorial and Village Planning and Building" departments.

The article needs some radical editing to remove wordiness, tired expressions (not only...but also), and over use of the verb "to be" in all its guises, where action verbs could bring life to the prose. It reads like a poor semi-literal translation and does not exemplify Wikipedia's best work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GrahamColm (talk • contribs) 13:17, November 16, 2008

    • Thanks for the comment! I have split the long sentences listed and reworded the "not only... but also" part; I found no other uses of that construct throughout the article. I've asked for native-speaker assistance a couple of times, but it's up to me to make the changes most of the time, hence the prose problems. I'm willing to work on improving the prose as soon as any issues are mentioned here, but I find it hard to determine the issues all by myself. Todor→Bozhinov 14:39, 16 November 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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