Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/King Charles Spaniel/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 20:08, 28 August 2011 [1].

King Charles Spaniel

Nominator(s): Miyagawa (talk) 22:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe that it fulfills the requirements of being an FA. I've nominated articles before, but have never succeeded in making the article all the way to a fully fledged FA, and I've attempted to cover the issues raised in the nominations on those other articles here before making the nomination. The article has been peer reviewed and given a copy edit both by the Guild of Copy Editors and by some colleagues at the Dogs WikiProject. A note on naming conventions (as it has come up in previous nominations), it is the Project MOS that dog breed names have each word capitalised (e.g. King Charles Spaniel or Pug), however where the word refers to a type of dog then it is in fully lowercase (e.g. spaniel or toy dog). Also, as per the requirement, I am a competitor in the WikiCup. Miyagawa (talk) 22:11, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: I'm happy to see a dog breed nomination. There are a few issues I wanted to mention, more may come later:

Singular and plural usage throughout the article is inconsistent. This is exemplified here (singular-plural-singular-singular): "The King Charles has ... On average, they stand 9 to 11 inches (23 to 28 cm) at the withers, with a small but compact body. The breed has ..." I prefer singular but my preference is worth beans -- regardless, it should be consistent. This needs to be addressed throughout the article as there are a couple more examples.
"a black margin around its lips" This can probably be said in more standard and specific way. You mean the skin and not the hair -- it's ambiguous -- so say "black skin around its lips" or something to that effect. I just checked my copy of the Rice book and it was introduced there, and since I can't recall hearing this phrase within the dog world, it should probably be quoted or attributed more directly if it's not switched out.
When not beginning a sentence, is it "The Kennel Club" or "the Kennel Club"? I always assumed the former, as it's part of their "official name" and I've seen it used that way elsewhere, but their site indicates that it is written "the Kennel Club" so I've probably got it wrong.
I don't know whether or not this is a requirement but many access dates are missing.

I don't want to mess around too much as I have no FA experience, but I'd be happy to do some close paraphrasing checks of several offline sources, since I own a few of the books. (That's assuming that the portions used aren't available in Google Books -- I didn't check.) Anna ^talk 01:27, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through and removed the plurals - foolishly I went through at one point and added them. Copyedited the black margin line, and corrected all the Kennel Clubs to The Kennel Club. Also added all missing accessdates, although I'm sure that at least one isn't displaying. Miyagawa (talk) 20:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think I fixed all of the errors WRT pluralization. Incidentally, are we sure it's not "the Kennel Club"? Similar to "the Bahamas"? I'm hopeless with that sort of thing so perhaps someone else can verify which one it is. Anna ^talk 20:26, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Switched it all to "the Kennel Club" - checked their copyright page on the website here. Thanks for fixing the pluralization, it's always one of the major issues with my writing. Miyagawa (talk) 20:48, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:52, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Watch for small inconsistencies like doubled periods
Check italicization - website publishers shouldn't be italicized. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:52, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed the double period I found and corrected the website italization. Miyagawa (talk) 20:09, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - I was checking up on my own FAC, and was quite pleased to see a dog breed article up for review. My comments are on the writing mostly, so I didn't check the sources to verify information or check for plagiarism issues.
amalgamated - what?
It's a little weird that the "Traits" field in the infobox is empty... I clicked "show" expecting to find some tidbits.
are more suited to being lapdogs. - "better suited to being lapdogs"?
There's no rule that says you need a citation after every sentence. Indeed, if multiple sentences are derived from the same source, you don't need to repeat it (unless there's a quote).

Just a few things at first glance... nice work. Juliancolton (talk) 02:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Replaced amalgamated with combined, filled out the traits section in the infobox and changed the line to better as suggested. Also went through and removed a few cites where they were doubled up in a paragraph without them following a quote. Miyagawa (talk) 09:13, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Caption on History lead image needs editing for grammar
File:Felipe_of_Spain_and_MariaTudor.jpg: source link returns 404 error

In looking this one up, I discovered that it was not the painting as described in the text by Antonis Mor. So the caption is a lot simpler, and I've added a different source url. It doesn't give the normal level of permissions, but I've added it anyway as per Commons:Reuse of PD-Art photographs. Miyagawa (talk) 19:10, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:The_children_of_Charles_I_of_England-painting_by_Sir_Anthony_van_Dyck_in_1637.jpg: ditto

Added new source url. Miyagawa (talk) 19:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:149._King_Charles_and_Blenheim_Spaniels.JPG: can you expand source info?

Managed to identify the artist and added further details. Miyagawa (talk) 20:03, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

wiki/File:Blenheim_Spaniel_1903.jpg: ditto

Added further information regarding publishing information of the source. Miyagawa (talk) 20:08, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:Ruby-Spaniel-Red-Clover.jpg: ditto

Added more information, and added a PD UK Unknown tag as there was no author information given in the book, and the book was only seemingly published in the UK (and not in the States). Miyagawa (talk) 19:48, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

File:King_charles_spaniel.jpg: can we translate the source info? What kind of source is this? Nikkimaria (talk) 18:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I checked and "Chovatelská stanice z Valldemose" is the name of the author's dog kennel. Miyagawa (talk) 19:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments It's nice to see a doggie candidate, but there was an obvious typo in line 2 (now fixed), and a most unlikely assertion a little later: "The red and white variety of toy spaniel was first seen in paintings by Titian around 1505". The problem with this is that Titian was around 15-17 in 1505, & the earliest works conventionally attributed to him are from 1507 (no dogs in them either). This could be a typo, but I suspect is in the source used, which seems to date to 1911, & whose reliability must be questionable. There could be more on the types of Japanese dogs the breed may descend from. I haven't read all the article thoroughly yet. Johnbod (talk) 17:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the Titian check, it's certainly thrown up a big question. I've looked into it, and two pages after making the 1505 it displays Venus of Urbino, which from the list article is the first appearance of a red and white spaniel in a Titian painting. It seems that the information given on Titian in the source is just plain incorrect - although they give his date of death correctly, it lists his birth year as 1477. I will have a dig around for an appropriate source to support the correct Titian details. As for the existing source itself, I would say that in the realm of dogs it's reliable (the author, Judith Blunt-Lytton, 16th Baroness Wentworth was heavily involved in establishing some of the toy breeds in the UK) - although for art, it's apparently not! Miyagawa (talk) 19:53, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that would have been a standard view on his birth date in 1911, based on what are now thought to be fibs by Titian himself in his old (but not that old) age - see the article and talk page archives - you may remember there was a Commons Question Time kerfuffle involving Brown & Cameron on just this point a few years ago. 1505 for the Venus just looks odd though; I doubt that was a common view even then. I'd just say "The red and white variety of toy spaniel was first seen in paintings by Titian, for example his Venus of Urbino (1538)..." if that seems compatible with your ref, and with an extra ref for that date (which I can help with if required). Johnbod (talk) 20:09, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggested wording, I'll incorporate that into the article immediatly. I'll check the venus article for a suitable reference for the date. Miyagawa (talk) 13:34, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further to my previous note, I managed to find a reference which also contained information about why the dog was in the painting, so this all worked out for the better. Miyagawa (talk) 13:56, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.