Talk:Art Nouveau architecture in Riga/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Daß Wölf (talk · contribs) 00:05, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Hello, @Yakikaki: thanks for nominating this interesting article :) I'll be starting the review shortly! Daß Wölf 00:05, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

(Part 1)

Background

• "gates and walls ... were demolished from 1856 and replaced" - They were demolished in 1856, or in a period starting with 1856?

• I've tried to make it clearer, and also took the opportunity while doing this to introduce one more source that I recently acquired.

• "taller than six storeys or 21.3 metres (70 ft))." - Is this an exact figure? 21.3 m is nearly exactly 70 ft -- did this come from a British/American source that uses feet?
  • Never mind, it appears that the Russian Empire was at the time using units standardised by Peter the Great after British imperial units. That would make the 70 ft figure exact. Daß Wölf 00:33, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
• "Riga's first Art Nouveau building, designed by the architects Alfred Aschenkampff and Max Scherwinsky, lies on Audēju iela 7 (Audeju street) in the medieval part of the city" - This is optional, but it would be useful to have the year of construction here.

• Fixed!

• "A proportion of the decorative details for the buildings" - "Proportion" is correct in meaning, but it's not used in a "a proportion of"-type phrase, while "a portion of" generally signifies part of a whole, not a selection of parts. It would be better to replace this with "Some of..." or "Many of...", whichever is more appropriate given the proportion of locally produced decorative elements. Daß Wölf 00:30, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

• Fixed!

(Part 2)

Lead

• The lead should summarise the article. Since this article is fairly short, the length is OK but I think a little more could be added in order to better summarise the Background section.

• I've expanded it with a bit more information, I hope it reflects the article as a whole a bit better now.

Development

• May I suggest making sure an example or two of each building style is cited. These subsections are also all pretty short. I think some of the text in the image captions might be reused in the article body to expand them.

• Done, also tried to expand the info under each heading a bit more.

Again, thank you for taking time to research for and write this article. It is well-written and informative and I'll happily pass it once a few minor issues are corrected. For now, placing the article  On hold for 7 days :) Daß Wölf 01:43, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Hello! I just saw this now. I recently retired from Wikipedia but since you've taken the trouble with the review, I'll get back to do this. However, I'm in the middle of moving and changing life in general, so I'll need a few days to come back and address the issues identified - is it ok if I take a few more than seven days? I'll try to finish it before, but right now I don't have access to my books. Thank you for the review! Yakikaki (talk) 18:22, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Of course, feel free to take your time. I'm sorry to annoy you with WP business at this moment and very grateful you've decided to respond to the review after retiring :) Just please ping me or leave a note on my talk page when you do have time to get back to the review in case I miss it. Daß Wölf 21:42, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! I will get internet to my new apartment on Tuesday, and hopefully next weekend at the very latest I should be able to address these points. Thanks again for doing the review and giving me the time extra - I'll be as quick as I can! Yakikaki (talk) 20:38, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

FINALLY, I've managed to get a working setup in my new home so I could address these issues - let me know if there is anything else you want me to do, or if you are happy with these changes. I've added my comments inder yours above. Thanks again for taking the time and effort to do the review |Daß Wölf, and for all your patience! Best regards, Yakikaki (talk) 15:35, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

(Part 3)

Thank you for responding and addressing my issues, Yakikaki, and great work on the new changes :) Only a few more issues:

• I'd prefer wikilinking Latvia in the lead. Readers arriving here from non-Latvian Art Nouveau articles may not be familiar with the country.

• I actually removed the wikilink here quite deliberately, in accordance with MOS:OL, but I've put it back again as per your request. Since Latvia is a small and not very widely known country I can see that it makes sense to have the link there.

• "... and the decor more highly stylized." - I see you used "characterise" elsewhere in the article. It would be best to change this to "stylised" to match.

  Fixed!

• "Approximately between one third and one fourth of every Art Nouveau building in Riga can be said to be built in this style." - Preferably replace with something like "Approximately one fourth to one third of all Art Nouveau buildings in Riga were built in this style." (if I've got the meaning right) or "... can be said to have been built in this style". It's best not to use the "can be said" qualifier unless this statement is a matter of dispute in some way (and should probably be clarified if it is).

• Fixed!

• "Stylistically, the Art Nouveau architecture of Riga is can be divided into four main categories: Eclectic or Decorative; Perpendicular or Vertical; National Romantic and Neo-Classical." - I'd like to add a semicolon between "Romantic" and "and" for ease of reading (see Oxford comma). Daß Wölf 23:21, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

• Fixed!

Thank you again, Daß Wölf, for good suggestions for improvement; I've amended the article accordingly. All the best, Yakikaki (talk) 07:25, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

@Yakikaki: thanks for addressing the issues and once again compliments on writing this article :) I'm checking this as a ✓ Pass! Daß Wölf 19:11, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

Woho! Thank you! I'm very happy for this, and I also really think this process helped making the article better - thank you for your time and effort! Signing out, Yakikaki (talk) 19:26, 19 May 2019 (UTC)