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Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture/Peer review/archive/Winter 2007

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Peer review is closed --Joopercoopers (talk) 17:35, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article failed at WP:FAC. I could use some advice. See FAC discussion.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 05:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Beats me why it failed Tony - comments like 'too short' and 'no GA no FA' shouldn't have been weighted in the decision. Reads fine to me at first scan - I'll have a bit more of an in depth look later and then I think you should just re-nom. --Joopercoopers (talk) 14:09, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please close the peer review; articles shouldn't be WP:FAC and WP:PR at the same time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have been working on Forbidden City for a while, with the aim of getting it to featured article status. I feel that it is meeting or close to meeting the criteria, so I would appreciate any comments or suggestions in that regard. Some things which I would like a "fresh eye" to comment on include style and quality of prose, formatting of references, and image quantity/placement. Thanks in advance, --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 04:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by SpecialWindler

[edit]

It's a good well constructed article, few pointers

  •  DoneYour table of contents is a little too long, consider removing the === headings
    • To make a heading without putting it as table of contents simply add ; before the heading. for example
this heading has ; placed before it.
  •  DoneThe lead is too short for a 64KB page. Consider 3 paragraphs

There a few comments, not a good review though. SpecialWindler talk 06:59, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments.
  1. I've hidden the subheadings under "Collections". --PalaceGuard008
  2. I've started expanding the lead a little to better summarise the content of the article. There are now three (substantial) paragraphs. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 07:49, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by mcginnly

[edit]

Lazy review by mcginnly The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

  •  DonePer Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?]
  •  DonePer Wikipedia:What is a featured article?, Images should have concise captions.[?]
  •  DonePer Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 7 metres, use 7 metres, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 7 metres.[?]
  •  DonePer Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), when doing conversions, please use standard abbreviations: for example, miles -> mi, kilometers squared -> km2, and pounds -> lb.[?]
  •  DonePer Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), please spell out source units of measurements in text; for example, the Moon is 380,000 kilometres (240,000 mi) from Earth.[?] Specifically, an example is 0.72 km2.
  •  DoneWhen writing standard abbreviations, the abbreviations should not have a 's' to demark plurality (for example, change kms to km and lbs to lb).
  •  DonePer Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Build the web, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006.[?]
  •  DonePer Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally should not repeat the title of the article. For example, if the article was Ferdinand Magellan, instead of using the heading ==Magellan's journey==, use ==Journey==.[?]
  •  DonePlease reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at Wikipedia:Guide to layout.[?]
  •  DonePer WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Wikipedia:Summary style.[?]
  •  DoneThis article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.[?]
  •  DoneThere are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
    • it has been
    • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).[?]
  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
  •  DoneAs done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?]
  • Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Mcginnly | Natter 08:46, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Mcginnly! That's a lot of excellent suggestions. It'll take me a little time to work through them - but thanks! --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:52, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am progressively making the stylistic changes suggested, but I think one big issue is that I need to start a couple of sub-pages to make this summary style. I probably should have done that as the page was growing. Thanks! --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have created a number of daughter articles, including a large subpage at History of the Forbidden City. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:24, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by John Smith's

[edit]

mcginnly has made a lot of good points, so I won't repeat them. My only real bug is that a lot of citations come from the same source - "Yu". Would it be possible to have some of them replaced to vary the sources used?

 DoneAlso, I don't see the original references for "Yu" and "Yang" - you need to have full citations for the first time they're used. John Smith's 13:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that!
  1. Yu is probably the most authoritative source on the architecture of the Forbidden City out there. An alternative would be the Palace Museum website - but I've used Yu mostly because of two reasons: 1) the Palace Museum website is almost impossible to cite, becuase they disable right clicking and you can't see the URL of the framed page, and 2) Yu is an English language source, whereas the Palace Museum website has very little information in English - most of the information is in Chinese. Still, I'll see if I can replace some of the Yu refs with other sources.
  2. The full citations for Yu and Yang are in the Bibliography - I guess I haven't fully grasped how the footnote/bibliography thing correlates with the paper version. Good suggestion - I will change that. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 23:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by D. Recorder

This article looks very good. One minor comment is that there are a lot of paragraphs with only a few sentences in them. Very often there are only two or three sentences per paragraph. I would either merge or expand them so that the text flows more and isn't as broken by spaces. Secondly, it would be advantageous to have a labeled plan, diagram, or axonometric drawing that shows the locations of the individual buildings such as the gates and halls that are discussed. Furthermore, you can add a few more references, such as [1] if you have access, and you can also work from some surveys such as [2]. It is smart that you are using plenty of Chinese sources but the article may benefit from a few more in English. Where you are at now looks very close to featured article status. Well done so far and good luck. D. Recorder 01:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for that.
The one/two-sentence paragraph is a result of my attempt at Summary Style cull-and-move to daughter pages in the last couple of days - I will fix them up as suggested.
I'll work towards a labelled plan - still trying to decide how to go about labelling Image:Forbidden city map wp.png.
Thanks again for the comments. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 02:08, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have added a labelled plan. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 01:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looking for feedback before I nominate this article for Good article. Any edits and/or comments would be most helpful. If you respond, let me know if you have an article up for review and I will return the favor. Thanks in advance, I look forward to your suggestions. IvoShandor 13:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, this a Frank Lloyd Wright designed building. The article probably needs a good copy edit, which I will be doing but any help along those lines is always appreciated, a second set of eyes goes a long way. IvoShandor 13:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried asking for feedback at Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture and adding their template to the talkpage? DrKiernan 16:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I did once you posted that but still nothing. I am sure I can figure it out on my own if need be. IvoShandor 09:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

any comments on how to get up to GA status Franko2nd 14:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article already has a decent amount of information, which gives it a good starting point, but it could still use more. Here are a few of the main issues I saw at a glance.
  • First of all, turn the html into a standard infobox, {{Infobox Historic building}} seems to be the one used for things like this.
  • The "Today" section should be a subsection of "History".
  • Each of the sections is awfully short, they either need to be expanded, or the sections need to be redone. With only a paragraph or two each, they're disruptive, rather than helpful. For example:
===Keep===
The keep has four floors.
That is not a section. A single sentence does not deserve a header, no matter how you look at it. I would suggest leaving the "Keep" header in, remove each floor's header, then make the paragraphs blend together. Perhaps more information can be found, too.
  • Sources should be cited inline (see WP:CITE and WP:FN), and need to be formatted properly. I've found these helpful in the past.
  • The intro should be a summary of the information given in the rest of the article, not something completely different.
  • The history section is as much a description of the architecture as of the history. Can the two topics be split, and more history added? It was built for defense, but what happened between the time it was built and now? Has it seen any battles? Hosted any major events?
  • If/When the history and architecture are separated, the entire "Interior" section should be moved to the new architecture section. I'd also suggest not making such a big deal about interior vs exterior, unless significantly more details are added. Just describe each building in its own subsection, with separate paragraphs for inside and out.
  • Pictures should be spread out better.
  • A pass at copyeditting wouldn't hurt, either, though I'm unclear about what specifically constitutes the level of writing required for GA, so it might be ok until A/FA.
Hope that helps! -Bbik 17:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lazy review by mcginnly The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

  • Consider adding more links to the article; per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) and Wikipedia:Build the web, create links to relevant articles.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:What is a featured article?, Images should have concise captions.[?]
  • Please convert tables from HTML syntax to Help:Table wiki-markup.
  • There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Biography, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City.[?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually)
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 3 metres, use 3 metres, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 3 metres.[?]
  • As per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), dates shouldn't use th; for example, instead of using January 30th was a great day, use January 30 was a great day.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called ==The Biography==, it should be changed to ==Biography==.[?]
  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • While additive terms like “also”, “in addition”, “additionally”, “moreover”, and “furthermore” may sometimes be useful, overusing them when they aren't necessary can instead detract from the brilliancy of the article. This article has 12 additive terms, a bit too much.
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
  • This article needs footnotes, preferably in the cite.php format recommended by WP:WIAFA. Simply, enclose inline citations, with WP:CITE or WP:CITE/ES information, with <ref>THE FOOTNOTE</ref>. At the bottom of the article, in a section named “References” or “Footnotes”, add <div class="references-small"><references/></div>.[?]
  • Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Mcginnly | Natter 08:43, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm considering submitting this as a FAC, but there's a lot of history missing, despite the length of the section already (Once filled out, it will definitely be in need of some WP:SS-ing which I unfortunately don't have time for right now.). Is that likely to cause an automatic fail, or is there enough to allow it to receive decent consideration? I'm also concerned about redundancy, as some of the information deserved mention in a couple different sections, and while a few details are different in each section, others are not. Is it ok, or too much? How should I fix it? What can be removed from where, without leaving gaping holes? Also, have I gone overboard with the inline citations? If I have, how should I fix that without simply removing sources? Is there anything else that seems to be missing, or errors that I've overlooked? I'm busy now so may not be able to make suggested changes immediately, but if I can get a make-it-FA-quality to-do list to work on when I get the chance, that'd be much appreciated. -Bbik 15:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lazy review by mcginnly The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

  • Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.[?]
  • checkY If there is not a free use image in the top right corner of the article, please try to find and include one.[?]
  •  Unlikely When writing standard abbreviations, the abbreviations should not have a 's' to demark plurality (for example, change kms to km and lbs to lb).
    • Can't find this problem anywhere, anyone up to being a second set of eyes? -Bbik
  • checkY As per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), dates shouldn't use th; for example, instead of using January 30th was a great day, use January 30 was a great day.[?]
    • Only used for centuries, which is specified as being correct by the same page. -Bbik
  • Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: harbor (A) (British: harbour), meter (A) (British: metre), defense (A) (British: defence), recognize (A) (British: recognise), ization (A) (British: isation), grey (B) (American: gray), programme (B) (American: program ).
    • According to the given link, grey is "but a minor variant in American English", but it is still acknowledged; I don't see the issue with leaving that spelling even if it is petty. If there are any other words that set this comment off, I can't find them. -Bbik
  •  Done Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • While additive terms like “also”, “in addition”, “additionally”, “moreover”, and “furthermore” may sometimes be useful, overusing them when they aren't necessary can instead detract from the brilliancy of the article. This article has 20 additive terms, a bit too much.
      • 20 in 2,700-2,800 words doesn't seem like it's all that bad (Does this comment come from a pure count, or a percentage?), I'll see what can be done to cut some, though. -Bbik
        • Five cut, another one will be once I update the history section with more information. I don't think things will work as well if I remove any others, but the script doesn't give this complaint anymore, in any case. -Bbik 00:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  •  Unlikely The script has spotted the following contractions: can't, if these are outside of quotations, they should be expanded.
    • News to me, Ctrl+F can't find it, even if I stop at can and search all six of those (two of which are part of significant, would that have set it off?). -Bbik
  • Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Mcginnly | Natter 08:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Shame there's not much useful here this time, the script is usually pretty good. -Bbik 15:35, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article was recently passed as Good Article Status. The GA reviewer suggested that it be put up for Peer Review. Specifically, the points brought up on the way towards Featured Article Status included refreshing the prose so as to be more "sparkling". However, any other suggestions as to how to improve the quality of the article towards FA status would be most appreciated. Thank you for your time. Smee 12:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Review

Some points I noticed about the article:

  • It is incredibly well-referenced. No problems whatsoever there.
  • It is fairly short. Might need a good bit more content before FA.
  • Written well.
  • Appears to have a good structure.
  • Good use of an infobox, and 3 images.
  • Many wikilinks.

To sum up: I think that it has pretty much everything going for it, excepting length of content. If it can be expanded to 1.5 times or even twice its current size, it will breeze through FA with flying colours.

Great work and well done to all who were involved in this article! Anonymous Dissident Utter 02:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Autoreview by mcginnly

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Mcginnly | Natter 09:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by mcginnly
  • Whilst the article purports to be about the Leo J. Ryan Federal Building, it focusses almost exlcusively on the contents and functions of the building rather than it's architecture. We need some hard facts about it's architecture.
  1. Who built it - contractor and architect?
  2. How long did it take?
  3. What was the budget?
  4. What materials is it constructed from?
  5. What style is it in?
  6. "As a primary research source for Asian-Pacific immigration, environmental, Naval, Native American,[2] as well as other aspects of American history" - is this reflected in any way in the architecture?
  7. What is the organisational layout?
  8. The landscaping looks interesting - can we describe it?
  9. Context - "The Leo J. Ryan Federal Building is surrounded by a cyclone fence" - has it always been like this or just after the oklahoma bombing. - where does it sit in the city - what part did it play in the urban fabric?
  10. Why is it in San Bruno - is it to isolate it?
  11. Any chance of a plan?
  12. What's the floor area?
  13. Is it single story, double story?

There's some pretty big gaps there - I'm not comfortable with the GA status as it stands. --Mcginnly | Natter 09:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also

  1. the lead needs some work - it contains information not in the body text
  2. "It would take 40 people approximately 100 years to microfilm all of the records currently available at the National Archives and Records Administration division of the Leo J. Ryan Federal Building" - this is rather spurious and unencylopedic, the earth article does not contain information about how many paper clips laid end to end would be required to encircle the earth. Did you mean to talk about an ongoing programme to microfilm the records - is it being done? - why aren't they scanning? - how long will it take?
  3. I confess I'm ignorant of US legislation - is a legislative act required for all renamings of public buildings? This is quite surprising - the artilce could be globalised by explaining this.
  4. "A San Mateo County publication identified the building as a "local treasure." - on what ground (the contents presumably)
  5. who or what are "Interactive Resources"
  6. "only Member of Congress to die in the line of duty." a first scan of this and I assumed he died in WWII - I had to check his article to find out the actual circumstances - a one sentence explanation of his death probably wouldn't be inappropriate here.
  7. What's a "cyclone fence" - can we link it, stub it or describe it - it may be common knowledge in the US, but I can only guess what it is.
  8. The article doesn't seem to have a beginning, middle and end. I'd take all of the facts and rearrange them in an order that leads from one to the other - chronological would be fine - but at the moment, to end with a technical fact about temperature, jarrs and leads me to think "well is that the current state of the building - has the environment always been maintained at these level........."
  9. Are there any plans for the future.

Regards --Mcginnly | Natter 15:16, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • These are all good points, and I will begin to address them. As to the quality of the article, I can only say for the time being that two other editors - the other commentator, above, and the original GA reviewer, both wrote positively on the article's quality, both here on this page and on the talk page of the article itself. I will take a look at some of these points in more detail to improve the quality of the article further. Of course, if you find more citations to address some of these points as well, by all means. Yours, Smee 19:42, 22 June 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Although this article is expected to be only of minority interest (even among UK architects), general comments on accuracy and usefulness to the small readership having a close interest will be welcome. Salisian 19:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I should have said I am not the author, but have a close interest in the subject matter. Salisian 20:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can't really comment on it's accuracy, but found it useful - it certainly tied in with the little I know on the subject. I wonder if the last paragraph could be improved -
"When the Warne Report[7] was published in 1993, it was found that its principal recommendation was abolition of protection of the title "architect" and the disbanding of ARCUK. Instead[8], the Council has been reconstituted and renamed as the Architects Registration Board and now operates under the Architects Act 1997."

Perhaps a note to say why the abolition of the protected title was recommended and explanation of the seeds of disquiet that has subsequently arisen between ARB and the RIBA - I'd like to know anyway. --Mcginnly | Natter 08:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]