Talk:Wilhelm Cauer/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Joe Decker (talk · contribs) 18:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Review in progress. --j⚛e decker^talk 18:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Interesting biography, I found it engaging, and reading it inspired me to actually attempt my first GAR. (Which means that there's a fair chance I'll put my foot in my mouth somewhere here, feel free to tell me if I do.)

• 1(a): Well-written? Generally yes. I found no signs of copyright concern, either. However, I did notice a few places that I felt the prose might benefit from adjustment:
  • "This required a certain amount of experience on the part of the designer to choose suitable sections"... "sections" here is a polysemous enough term that not being familiar with the study of network synthesis, I feel as if I get a little lost when I reach this term. Looking further, I'm guessing that this refers to filter sections. Perhaps a wikilink might be helpful here.
    • Done SpinningSpark 18:11, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
  • "His early grammar school was located in Cauerstrasse, named after his great-grandfather, the founder of the school." I got a bit lost here, it felt strange that we never got the name of the school, just the town it was located in. (Or was the school also named Cauerstrasse? Also, "strasse" if I recall correctly is "street", is this not so much "in" as "along/on" Cauerstrasse?)
    • I think the school must have been Kaiserin Augusta Gymnasium but unfortunately I can't find a good reference. The (unreferenced) Wikipedia article says it was founded in 1818 by Ludwig Cauer, which is about the right date for a great-grandfather, and was renamed after the empress in 1876. But it also says it is now called Erich-Hoepner-Gymnasium which Google maps locates to another location, but still in the Charlottenburg district. There is a Ludwig-Cauer Grundschule on Cauerstrasse. "Grundschule" is German for primary school, but according to their website they were formerly a Gymnasium (high school). Unfortunately, they don't state their former name and give the date of the building as 1899. However this site categorically says Ludwig-Cauer-Grundschule was formerly Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium, backed up by (again unreferenced) German Wikipedia de:Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium. My guess is that they are occupying the site of the original Ludwig Cauer school and that the Erich-Hoepner-Gymnasium is a red herring, or at least a different site of Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium. I am confident enough to put money on that, but the referencing is a bit flaky for Wikipedia. SpinningSpark 15:08, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Wow, that's some research! I suspect you're right, both that it is that school and that that the research might not quite meet reliably source it. Here's why I asked: the current phrasing will leave some readers wondering if "named after his great-grandfather" refers to the Cauerstrasse or the grammar school itself, if you can untangle that ambiguity, you'll have addressed my concern--I'd hoped that putting in the school name would make that a little more obvious, but without sourcing, I think just a rewording probably makes the most sense, is that your take, too?
      • Aha, just found the school's history page. I'll put something in as soon as I've got my head around the German. I had already clarified about the street name. SpinningSpark 15:47, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
        • Great! --j⚛e decker^talk 16:00, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
  • "He married Karoline in 1925" ... does she have a maiden name we know? (Clarify: For some reason the sentence felt awkward to me without it, I'm not suggesting that knowing the last name is required, but if we do, I think adding it would smooth the prose.)
    • Done. SpinningSpark 11:58, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • "telecommunications related publications" should this be "telecommunications-related publications"?
    • Done. SpinningSpark 11:58, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • The two-item list that follows here might read more smoothly as text.
    • Done SpinningSpark 11:58, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • "The anti-Jewish hysteria of the time forced many academics to leave, including the director of the Mathematics Institute," Leave the country, or the institute?
    • They were not allowed to teach so had to leave their posts - but those with any sense left the country as well. SpinningSpark 11:58, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • race laws-- presumably Nuremberg race laws?
    • I've wikilinked this. 1933 is a little prior to the Nuremburg laws. Emil is more likely referring to the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. The linked article covers all this so best to leave it to that article. SpinningSpark 11:58, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • "He did however, continue to lecture", would the comma read better after did? (Apologies if this is a USEng vs. BritEng thing)
    • I would say a comma after is definitely needed whether or not there is a comma before. However it is now moot as the sentence has now been edited by another editor. SpinningSpark 11:58, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • "Cauer had been shot dead in his garden in Berlin-Marienfelde by soviet soldiers" Capitalize "soviet"?
    • I've changed this to "Russian". "Soviet" seems to have been a POV insertion we really don't need. SpinningSpark 16:08, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Tchebyscheff/Chebyshev, tempted to suggest that we should stick with Wikipedia's usual orthography here, in either case it would be best to use one or the other, not both, to avoid (admittedly unlikely) confusion.
    • I don't see any use of "Chebyshev" in the body of the article (there is one in "see also"), it is consistently Tchebyscheff. I get a bit irritated with the spelling system of articles being forcibly changed. The only reason Chebyshev is the "usual" orthography is because editors have been going around changing other spellings to make it so. There is no Wikipedia guideline inssiting on this. When I learned electronics (admittedly a long time ago) it was always spelt Tchebyscheff and all my textbooks use that spelling, although "Chebyshev" does seem to be more common in more recent books. I won't fight it if someone changes the spellings, but it would stick in the throat to do it myself. SpinningSpark 16:08, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Entirely fair, would you be slightly, moderately, or greatly disturbed that I just changed to See Also to Tchebyscheff filter? There was already a redirect in place. (This is not, at this point, a significant issue with respect to GA, and revert me in good conscience if you prefer it as was.) --j⚛e decker^talk 17:52, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
• 1(b) Lead seems fine, for lead sections, layout, words to watch all seem fine in general. The publications list is, I think, placed out-of-spec with regard to the guidelines on layout, however, in theory it should come first. (It also took me a second to realize why the Brune thesis was included in that list, but I see why you included it there.) If you'd like to maintain that ordering I might ask for another reviewer's opinion on that point.
  • Now reorganised. SpinningSpark 16:08, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
• (2) Accurate Generally fine. Two points:
• "Indeed, he is considered the founder of the field." -- This is referenced to the E. Cauer publication (or unreferenced), and would, I feel, benefit from a more arms-length source and/or at least direct attribution. (Perhaps also the usage of "milestone" in the Career section.)
  • Additional references provided for independence. What is the problem with "milestone"? This is referring to Foster's work, not Cauer's, so Emil Cauer can be considered independent on this. Also note that the technical part of the paper is written by Mathis, not Emil Cauer. SpinningSpark 17:39, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. :) --j⚛e decker^talk 17:46, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
• Right now this link appears to be giving a (temporary?) error, is this a better link?
  • Fixed and security archived. SpinningSpark 17:39, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
• (3) Broad Breadth of coverage is fine
• (4) Neutral Neutrality seems fine except for the first issue discussed at (2).
• (5) Stable Article is stable.
• (6) Illustrated Illustration has a reasonable fair-use rationale, and is implicitly but clearly identified. No concerns.

A few suggestions which I believe fall outside of the GAC:

• "Privy Councillor" might be unfamiliar enough to many ears (at least American ones) to suggest a wikilink of some sort.
  • Done SpinningSpark 20:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
• Under "Network Synthesis", Suggest wl's for transfer function and possibly "finite element". "One-port"/port/multiport would benefit from an explanation or wikilink as well.
  • Done transfer function. For finite-element, lumped element model is almost the right target except that the infinite-element models that Cauer is considering are still really lumped element models, not the usual counterpoint distributed element models. I think the best we can do here is to wikilink just the element part. SpinningSpark 20:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
• Infobox: The three uses and wl's of German/Germany feel a bit repetitive here, can one be trimmed?
  • I am not a great fan of infoboxes. As far as I am concerned the whole infobox can be removed and just keep the image. SpinningSpark 20:39, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

I've also asked for a lookover of my review at the GAN talk page, which reflects my own inexperience with GAR, not any failure of your article. --j⚛e decker^talk 21:19, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks very much for reviewing. Some items may take a little research to bottom out, please bear with me if it takes some time. SpinningSpark 18:11, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Of course! --j⚛e decker^talk 18:13, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll give you more time to deal with these, but I do have to include two additional points raised by an editor I had "review my review", over at WT:Good article nominations He said:

Thanks for getting involved and learning the system. It looks like you got the hang of it. However, I noticed two further things I would have asked about: (1) File:Cauer.jpg is a non-free image but it is not clear who the copyright holder (the Source parameter is just a deadlink) and (2) The lead should be improved as it mostly just discusses electronic filters rather than "summarize the body of the article". I hope this helps.

I have repaired the broken link on the image page and named the institution. SpinningSpark 20:24, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I suspect the first point is pretty easy to deal with, the second might take a little time to write (and I'm a little embarrassed I missed it, since I also missed it when I've had the same problem raised at WP:PR about my own work at Chad Griffin) is important as well. I guess it's a blind spot for me, and something I'll have to keep in mind going forward both in writing and reviewing. I'm in no hurry in any case. Have a great week! Thanks! --j⚛e decker^talk 17:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I had noticed the lede was wanting myself and would probably have taken the opportunity to improve it as I worked through. I wrote this some time ago and there was already a stubby article in place. I probably just forgot to update the lede and left the original text in. SpinningSpark 19:27, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I have just started working on the lede today, there is still some way to go on it, but I thought one issue needed to be explained here first. I have removed the reference to "approximation" in the sentence Prior to his work, electronic filter design used techniques which were essentially approximation methods, as no exact answers were produced for the behaviour of the filter under real conditions. This is probably not so much of interest to GA review but the original author of that sentence (not me) may want an explanation. Approximation, in this context, usually means finding a polynomial function that approximates to a given arbitrary transfer function to within prescribed limits. This is precisely what Cauer's method does, so is just as much an approximation method as the earlier image method. The difference is that the image method tries to approximate to the impedance match (1920s designers thought entirely in terms of matching) so Cauer's method is directly attacking the filter requirement whereas the image method is attacking indirectly through another parameter. Of more concern to GA, this issue is not elaborated in the body of the article and is thus unreferenced. I will add something later referenced to Matthaei et al., a source I have used extensively in the more technical articles on this subject. SpinningSpark 21:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks! Yeah, that would warrant some sort of explanation/reference in the text, I'd think. I find the difference in approach fascinating (e.g., "thinking in terms of impedence match"). Neat stuff! --j⚛e decker^talk 17:49, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Closing comments: I believe all the issues I've raised have been addressed (I did add a note at the image page), and as a result, I have listed the article as a Good Article. Cheers, --j⚛e decker^talk 21:06, 5 August 2012 (UTC)