Talk:Littlefield Fountain/GA1

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Reviewer: Sam-2727 (talk · contribs) 04:20, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Will take a couple of days. I'll list out any comments I have as bullet points and then go over the major criteria at the end.

• "a donation of $200,000 (equivalent to $3,000,000 in 2019)" The source you are getting this from states that $200,000 states that this is equivalent to $4.5 million today. Is there a reason this is different in the article?

I just used Wikipedia's inflation template, which draws on Federal Reserve CPI figures. I don't know where that writer got his figure from, but we probably don't have to take his word as authoritative on the deflator for US dollars since a particular date? That's not really the area of expertise for which he's being cited. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Also, I'll clarify that I used 1919 (the date at which the donation was first proposed) for the deflator. If we used a figure from a date closer to when the construction actually happened, then we'd presumably get a lower present value rather than a higher, so that doesn't seem to explain the discrepancy. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 18:55, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

• I can't find reference in [1] for the claim "The Littlefield Fountain's function as a memorial to the Confederacy drew criticism even when it was first proposed in the early twentieth century." But I might just be missing it in the lengthy source.

Yeah, the source isn't paginated, unfortunately! Let's see... about 40% of the way along, it block-quotes Coppini right from the start trying to talk Littlefield down, telling him that a monument to the Confederacy will "be resented as keeping up the hatred between the Northern and Southern states." A bit below, Coppini is quoted to say (after the fact) that "We had people unfriendly to us from the very beginning, and many of the faculty were opposed from the start to a Confederate Memorial on the University Campus. That opposition was freely spoken of to me even at the time we exhibited the studies of the first plans, and if it had not been my advice to the Major to let me combine a World War Memorial with the rest of the men he wanted to commemorate, the University, with all probability would not have the Memorial erected on the grounds." Even at the time many people thought a Confederate memorial would be a bit tacky! -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

• "That August the university in fact removed" Maybe this is just me being nitpicky, but I don't see the need for "in fact" in this sentence. It suggests that the action is surprising, something that should be left of to the reader to decide

It was meant to refer to the fact that, though the petition was for the removal of Davis's statue, in the event the school also just pre-emptively removed Wilson's, too. I'll cut it if you don't feel that warrants it. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Up to you then. Doesn't really matter either way to me if there's an actual reason for it. Sam-2727 (talk) 00:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

• [2] is a dead link.

The Statesman seems to constantly reorganize its website. I've updated all the links, but bizarrely they've now changed the dates listed on the articles, one to obviously the wrong year! I guess I'll update the dates in my citations, even though it could prove confusing? -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

That is interesting. I guess that's the way to go since there's no guarantee the date you got from the article was correct originally either. Sam-2727 (talk) 00:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

• I noticed that in [3], a bronze worker strike is said to be one of the reasons the project ran over budget. Perhaps worth a mention in the article?

Added. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

General Criteria

• Well Written: The prose is fine and nothing overly technical about it. MOS compliant as far as I can tell.
• Verifiable: Once my points are addressed above, this condition will be met
• Broad in its coverage: Consider adding the Bronze Worker part, but the article would still comply with this criterion even without that addition.
• Neutral: Addresses the controversial removal of confederate statues in neutral tone. Everything else would be hard not to write in a neutral tone, in my opinion!
• Stable: Yes
• Illustrated: Plenty of pictures. Very good placement to compliment the text of the article. Often in Wikipedia articles (even featured articles sometimes), I see media hanging out in random sections of the article. Yours are always well placed.

Interesting to learn about the history of this statue! Just address the comments I have and I'll be glad to promote it to GA. Sam-2727 (talk) 04:55, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the review! -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 05:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sam-2727: Just a ping to make sure you saw this. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 18:55, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry about that! Somehow the page didn't get added to my watchlist when I created it. Everything looks good now. I'll close the review now. Sam-2727 (talk) 00:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.