Article's in pretty good shape, but since there does not appear to be much of a precedent for museum articles (save for Icelandic Phallological Museum, which is much shorter), I wanted to solicit feedback on structure and overlooked sourcing. I had worked with the museum's head librarian for some of these sources, but much of the finer history is either affiliated with the museum, either by publication or author—primary sources—hence why I used what I have. In particular, I haven't seen another museum article with a "Reception" section, which my GA reviewer liked, and while I'd like to expand it to include more exhibitions and opinions/reviews, I've been careful not to unbalance the section's weight within the article or to dive into minutiae unnecessary for a general audience. If I were to expand it, what should be included and how much? czar01:30, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have visited the museum btw (apparently one of the few....), and enjoyed it.
The sourcing is almost entirely from newspapers, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, which I don't like at all. There must be books and more specialized magazines, & the museum must have a press file. You should declare your COI here and at FAC etc, though I see you have on your user page and the article talk. At the same time you should probably be less afraid to use internally published sources - most of the newspaper stories will just be writing up press releases and interviews anyway.
It could do with more on the collection, imo, though I realize this will be a difficult area to write about.
I don't think I'd add more on temporary exhibitions.
Some statements seem rather out of date:
"The renovation is supported by private and federal investment, and was expected to begin in 2016 and finish in 10 to 20 years.[20]" - 2014 source. So where are we in mid-2017?
"As of 2008, it consisted of 9,000 objects and 300,000 photographs" - and now? Confusingly different figures are given a bit later: "At the time of the museum's move to the National Mall, its permanent collection consisted of more than 6,000 art objects, including sculpture, artifacts, textiles, and the large, Elisofon photography collection" and then "Within a decade, the collection had expanded to 7,000 traditional and modern objects from across all of Africa.[9]". This all probably makes sense, but needs clarity.
Outreach. Apart from the last sentence, which isn't really about outreach, there seems to be nothing on dates after 2004.
At various points the article says things like "At the time of the museum's move to the National Mall..." with no date. It is above, but the reader probably won't remember it, & should be reminded.
The museum director group pic looks too small to me.
Great, thanks! There's a bibliography linked at the bottom of its SI Archives page, but while I can't access it right now, it focuses more on the museum's founding and if I recall correctly, relies on primary/affiliated sources. I would have preferred to work from a definitive history book for the article, but the best I've got is a 2012 B.A. thesis, hence why I went with the newspapers: balance of editorial credibility and distance from the subject (even if, as you say, the news may be based on press releases rather than independent reporting). There are also hits in a subject search of the Smithsonian catalog (SIRIS) for "National Museum of African Art (U.S.)" but those too are mostly affiliated sources. They could be useful to fill in some uncontroversial missing detail, but I wouldn't want to use direct promotion and museum-affiliated monographs as the basis for factual claims about the museum.
I can expand on the collection—particularly the acquisitions, as more is written about that—but what topics/info would you expect to see, and is there another article that perhaps does this well?
The problem with the past-date statements are that external sources rarely publish regularly on stats and the changing of the guard, so the options are to either summarize what they have reported (and be slightly out of date) or to rely on primary sources (and require constant updating). I thought the former was the better compromise for the article's sake.
"At the time of the museum's move to the National Mall..." with no date I do this to keep the timeline in relative context for the general reader, if the info is better pegged to a milestone in the museum's history than to a specific year (1970s/80s is apropos of nothing unless the reader is keeping tabs of a separate timeline while reading the article). I added the date to this one instance though, and am looking into the other points. Thanks again czar16:33, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Some observations:
You seem too preoccupied with specific curators. It makes for dense and repetitive reading at times.
Over time, perspectives towards African art shifted from ethnographic interest to the study of traditional objects for their craftsmanship and aesthetic properties. Williams took a scholarly, art historian approach to the museum, and pursued risky, high-cost pieces before their ultimate values were settled. Cite needed. There are a few more like this.
The article is too focused on funding and its administration, while its many treasures seem to lack air time.
@Ceoil, thanks! Re: specific curators, do you mean in the history section? That's more a feature of covering each director's tenure, unless some names should be skipped. The coverage bias towards the institution and less the works is a feature of the sourcing (as mentioned above). I have a few leads for expansion. Re: the second point, every statement that doesn't have an immediate ref is covered in whatever footnote follows. I can add redundant footnotes if you think the preceding statements might be challenged. czar14:18, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No thats fine Czar, I'm just getting my head around the available sources. I do find it listy, in terms of tenature, however. Ceoil (talk) 14:22, 2 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Ceoil, shortened how? What parts/points or types of detail are expendable? And only in some sections or the whole article? Balancing general readability and encyclopedic depth based on what I imagine readers would expect to find czar04:22, 3 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
