Talk:Widener Library/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Martinevans123 (talk · contribs) 21:09, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

I have made a broad review and await responses to each of the points made. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:04, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

a (prose, no copyvios, spelling and grammar):

1. In terms of clarity, in the Section on Amenities and deficiencies the sentence "Nonetheless, with Harvard's collections doubling every 17 years, by 1965 Widener had again reached 85 percent capacity" suggests this 85% had been met before. Is this so? And should it say clearly somewhere that books had previously been moved out to avoid this capacity problem?

 Done Well, the full passage read:

Houghton and Lamont Libraries were built in the 1940s to relieve Widener, which had become simultaneously too small‍—‌its shelves were full‍—‌and too large‍—‌its immense size and complex catalog made books difficult to find. Nonetheless, with Harvard's collections doubling every 17 years, by 1965 Widener had again reached 85 percent capacity, leading to construction of Pusey.

To make the parallel more smooth I've changed "Widener had again reached 85 percent capacity" to "Widener was again close to full".EEng (talk) 17:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

2. Should "ground was broken February 12" say "ground was broken on February 12"?

 Done Correct either way (compare ground was broken yesterday) but for consistency with remainder of sentence added on. EEng (talk) 17:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

3. Should "steps to main door" say " steps to the main door".

 Done You know, you can make fixes like that yourself. I won't bite your head off. EEng (talk) 17:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I guess I could just make all the changes myself and abandon the review. But I won't bite your head off. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:00, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Let's both keep our heads. EEng (talk) 20:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

4. The para starting "For many years Eleanor Widener .." seems to have mixed tense.

Not sure. Not sure what problem you see -- one statement is about the past and the the other the present. I did change underwrites their upkeep to underwrites the rooms' upkeep, if that helps. EEng (talk) 17:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, accepted. Reading it again, it seems perfectly ok. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:57, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

5. In the section "Amenities and deficiencies", it's unclear if the third para describes amenities or deficiencies. Could be placed as the second para?

Not sure. I see your point but the current structure transitions nicely from the building as it was on opening to later and current points. EEng (talk) 17:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, accepted. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:55, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

6. Is "[stacks study carrels]" a grammatically correct construction? Is it in some way mixing a quote with an explanation?

 Done Reworded. EEng (talk) 17:09, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

7. Is "a long­standing distraction" accurate? surely such matters would have been their prime concern?

 Done See [1]. Now that I've reviewed the source, I've added a quote and gone back to the original "headache", metaphorical though it be. EEng (talk) 20:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

8. In Note P, "Austro-Hungarian Empire" and "Ottoman Empire" could be linked?

 Done and more. 20:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

9. I can find no violations of copyrights, all spellings seem correct and conform with American English and the grammar seems to be all correct (apart from the minor points noted above).

b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

1. Could "barcodes" be linked?

 Done 20:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

2. In the "Dedication" section, why are the captions in the stack of images centred instead of left-justified?

It's an attempt to subtly draw attention to the fact that they form a series from outside to inside. Not sure how well it works, but luckily you don't have to pick up on the series aspect for the images to be appropriate. EEng (talk) 20:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I think that may be too subtle for many readers. But, as it is a stylistic choice, it's not really part of the GA review criteria. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:40, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

We can leave it a glorious failure. 20:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

3. In the "Departmental and Special Libraries section", is the bullet list the best way of presenting this information?

I'm glad you asked that question. I keep running into the idea that lists are a no-no, but they're not, and WP:Manual_of_Style/Embedded_lists#Long_sequences gives an example just like this one to illustrate use of lists. EEng (talk) 20:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I see. Well in that case, there is no problem. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:42, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

a (reference section):

1. The article is meticulously well referenced. Most references are available on-line. All others appear to be to relevant scholarly works. All references are in a correct and consistent format. All references correctly support the claims made in the article.

Thank you. "Meticulous" is my middle name -- "E. Meticulous Eng". EEng (talk) 20:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

2. Re. ref (9) "mocavo.com" - this seems to require "upgrade to mocavo-gold" to read more than a few pages - should this be marked as "registration required" or "subscription required"?

Gosh, how thorough you are. This may be dependent on your location, but in any event I've added (subscription required). EEng (talk) 20:23, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

b (citations to reliable sources):

1. All citations seem to be to reliable sources.

c (OR):

1. There is no original research

3. It is broad in its coverage.

a (major aspects):

1. All major aspects of the subject appear to have been addressed.

b (focused):

1. Focus is maintained and the article does not ramble. There is a large amount of information provided in notes, but these are all well-balanced and provide relevant supporting material.

Wow, I really appreciate your putting it that way. EEng (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

Fair representation without bias:

1. I can detect no bias. Some use is made of favourable descriptions by anonymous, although fully-referenced, sources, but these do not seem overly non-neutral.

5. It is stable.

No edit wars, etc.:

1. The article, with one main contributor, who is both experienced and knowledgeable, has been very stable for some time. There do not seem to be any unresolved major, or even minor, disagreements. There are no edit wars.

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

a (images are tagged and non-free content have fair use rationales):

1. All images appear to be in the public domain and there are no copyright issues. All images have appropriate captions. There seem to be about the right number of images to illustrate an article of this size.

b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

1. The image at the start of "Swim-requirement, ice-cream, and other legends" and the image at the start of "Gutenberg Bible theft" do not appear to be particularly relevant to the subject matter in those sections.

One gets conflicting advice on whether even spacing of images, versus each-where-it's-relevant, is more important. For the most part, for images that tie into the text most are in the appropriate section, though a few are one section "early or late" so to speak (e.g. Harry W's will comes one section too early). The two you mention aren't tied to any particular text, so I just put them where there seemed to be a gap in the images. Since we're on the topic: I like to think that the montage of three tablets at the head of the article fulfills the suggestion at WP:Manual_of_Style/Captions#Drawing_the_reader_into_the_article; though those three images themselves leave something to be desired, I think they form a fitting introduction and draw the reader in. EEng (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes. No article can ever be perfect for everyone and there will always be some compromise. I don't think the current position of these two images causes any real confusion. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:01, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

7. Overall:

Pass/Fail:

Summary

As should be clear form the Talk Page, most of the legwork for the review was already done, in GA1, by User:Ritchie333. All the points I have raised have been fully answered and in some cases improvements made beyond what was required. I therefore see no reason why this article should not be considered as having achieved GA status. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:25, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

This seems like much more work for you than I anticipated, so double thanks -- and as you mention, to Ritchie as well, since he'd done most of the heavy lifting already in a prior review. EEng (talk) 20:48, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Martin for helping get this to GA status, I think I was just knackered from GA1 to be honest. I just checked for a DYK (if there wasn't one I'd have put one up myself) and that seemed to be a long hard slog too. Still, we got there in the end - well done EEng! Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 20:18, 16 February 2015 (UTC)