Talk:Charles Brenton Fisk/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 17:40, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:40, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Images are appropriately licensed. Earwig reveals no issues.

• What makes The Cornerstone a reliable source? I see it's the newsletter of the Rice Historical Society; is that an academic group, or a group of local amateur historians?
• The lead is a little short for an article of this length.
• Spotchecks:
  • FN 28 cites "His organs was described to be of an eclectic nature, never sticking to only one style of organ building". This needs copyediting, but verified.
  • FN 14 cites "In tracker-action organs, the movement of the keys or pedals is linked mechanically to the valve, enabling air to flow through the organ pipes. Conversely, electro-pneumatic action organs have the valves and keys connected through electricity, without the use of mechanical trackers." The definition of electro-pneumatic organ isn't really given in the source, which only says "electric", doesn't use the term "electro-pneumatic", and says nothing about what the electricity is used for.
  • FN 16 cites "His first significant work was constructed in 1961: a two-manual fully mechanical-action organ (op. 35). It was built in Mount Calvary Episcopal Church, Baltimore, with the help of organ builder Dirk Flentrop. Flentrop advised on the design of tonal and mechanical components, while Fisk created the final design, voicing, and construction." The source has "... in 1961 he completed his first significant instrument, a two-manual fully mechanical-action organ at Mount Calvary Episcopal Church in Baltimore. At the insistence of organist Arthur Howes, the renowned Dutch organbuilder Dirk Flentrop was retained to advise on mechanical and tonal design, but Fisk was in charge of the final design and all construction and voicing". This is too close paraphrasing.
  • FN 38 cites "According to an interview in 1975, this lowered the cost of the organ by not having to build an entirely new casework." Verified.
  • FN 44 cites "In 1988, musicologist Mark Lindley published an analysis of the organ's tuning system. He found that the organ included tuning discrepancies, with various notes being few cents off from its historical counterparts." Needs copyediting, but verified.

That's two issues in five cites checked -- not enough to fail the article but I am going to have to do another spotcheck before I can promote -- a spotcheck has to come up clean, or very nearly so, for the article to pass. I would suggest you have a look through the article to convince yourself that it's ready for another spotcheck and let me know when I can try again.

The other immediate issue that I see is a need for copyeding. Two of the five spotchecks showed up issues:

• "His organs was described to be of an eclectic nature, never sticking to only one style of organ building." Presumably should be "were described", or perhaps just "were eclectic", or "were eclectic in design".
• "He found that the organ included tuning discrepancies, with various notes being few cents off from its historical counterparts". Should be something like "He found that there were discrepancies in the organ's tuning, with various notes being a few cents off from ..." and I think "historical counterparts" is vague. Lindley gives more details than you need, but the reader has to be told a little more than this to make sense of it.

Then from a skim through the article:

• "Rückpositiv is a smaller section of organ pipes that can be played separate from the larger main pipes": should be "separately", and shouldn't it be "A Rückpositiv is" rather than just "Rückpositiv is"?
• "The special pedals affect the lower register portion(Pedaal division) of the main keyboard(Great)". The parentheses should have a space before them, and what they mean is unclear. If this is something a reader knowledgeable about organs would understand, that's OK, but we should have either a link or a footnote to explain these.
• 'Organist George Bozeman wrote in The Tracker that it provided a "vivid, rich sound, and a crystalline clarity that reveals the color and texture of each stop".[35] Additionally, William Gatens wrote in American Record Guide that based on the recording, the organ sounded "thin and strident" and felt "dry" compared to Fisk's later works.' "Additionally" isn't appropriate; there's nothing in common between Bozeman's and Gatens' comments. Yo
• "This was the last organ Fisk have completed before succumbing to his longtime illness": ungrammatical.
• "After Fisk's death, C. B. Fisk, Inc. continues to manufactures organs to the present day." Ungrammatical.

These are just examples; the whole article needs a pass by a good copyeditor. I would suggest requesting a copyedit from the WP:GOCE. I can keep the review open for a while if you want; I think there's a fair bit of work to do but it could probably be done in the confines of a GA review. However, I'd recommend instead that I fail the nomination, which would mean there's no time pressure on you to make the changes. When the article has been copyediting and you've checked that the sources accurately support the text, you can renominate it then. Let me know how you'd like to proceed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:49, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the review! I see that this article has more issues than I previously imagined. Copyediting is probably manageable within the time constraint but spot-checking might take longer. I would like this article failed so that this article can be edited stress-free. Again, thanks for the insightful feedback. Carpimaps (talk) 02:28, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

OK -- will do. Good luck with the article! Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:34, 23 April 2023 (UTC)