Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Koninginnedag/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 20:53, 28 May 2011 [1].

Koninginnedag

Featured article candidates/Koninginnedag/archive1

Nominator(s): Wehwalt (talk) 14:32, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because... I think it meets the criteria. A hundred and twenty five years ago, some Dutch decided to promote national unity by having a holiday on Princess Wilhelmina's birthday. They could not imagine that their innocent little children's holiday would grow into an excuse for flea markets, heavy drinking, and wearing orange to excess. Not to mention orange beer. Enjoy it. I've been over there six times on Koninginnedag, perhaps I can pay for my enjoyment a bit with what I think would be only our third Netherlands FA after an unbuilt battleship and Anne Frank. Enjoy (hic).Wehwalt (talk) 14:32, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done

Formatting on ref 9, 14
Be consistent on what is italicized - NYT for example is only sometimes so currently
Be consistent in whether you use website name or URLs as publishers for web sources
What makes amsterdam.info a high-quality reliable source? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:29, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will do these this evening. With respect to amsterdam.info, their about us page seems to indicate that this is a serious endeavour, with a team of local editors supervised from a corporate location elsewhere.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:13, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have fixed those. amsterdam.info is the name of the organization as well as the web address.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:38, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Media review: Photographs seem valid in their assertions of public domain. The ogv is a bit tricky, but I believe Sound and Vision has managed to at least obtain permission to license Polygoon films that enables "free" use in the US (where copyright of foreign publications in force for 95 years after publication) ,[2][3][4] in a manner similar to Bundesarchiv; so all media is appropriately licensed. Jappalang (talk) 03:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for your reviews.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:05, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I can see myself supporting this article, but have a few prose requests, most of which I deal with myself; but a few I can't without stepping on toes. The lead is, to me, unbalanced; the third para picks up a number of points, but they seem disconnected. the holiday was moved to her birthday. In 2009, seven spectators were killed. is known for its nationwide vrijmarkt. At least I'd break the last two into their own para and merge the preceeding with the 2nd para. And there is a lot of repetition in consecutive sentences with 'the holiday', 'celebrations/celebrated' etc (in the first too sections of the article, though the prose pick up after that). I'm leaning towards support, can tweak myself in a few days. One difficult sentence:

Celebrated on 30 April (the 29th if the 30th falls on a Sunday), Koninginnedag is Queen Beatrix's official birthday—she was born on 31 January; 30 April was the birthday of her mother and predecessor, Juliana.

This is a snake and contains both dashed asides and parentheses, in other words hard to parse, though maybe Im just thick. Ceoil 01:26, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the edits and the review. I'll look at it closely when I have more coffee in me. Your request sounds quite reasonable. I'll play with it.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:29, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've taken care of that. Would you like to take another look?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:35, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: An interesting and unusual topic of which I was formerly quite in ignorance.

Lead

"On her the holiday acquired its present name" - word(s) missing after "her", possibly "accession"?
In the last sentence, since you are citing, it would be better to use the source's actual expression - "otherwise straight-laced" - in quotes, rather than your paraphrase.

I'll change it to straight-laced, but I don't think a quote is needed. The citation, of course, is there to justify the adjective, otherwise I know what would happen at FAC. :)

Wilhelmina

MOS violation with text squeezed between two images. Wilhelmina's portrait is probably dispensible
A comma too many in "Faced with an unpopular monarchy, in the 1880s, the liberals in Dutch government..."
You probably can't answer this, but why would a holiday on the last day of the summer vacation be popular with schoolchildren? I'd have thought that "back to school tomorrow" was a bit of a dampener.

That was pointed out by Tim at PR. All I can say is you probably have to be Dutch. I dislike Labor Day to this day.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:31, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"To ensure that the poor were not excluded, bands played simultaneously at 28 locations across The Hague". How would this help to include the poor?
"During the World War II German occupation of the Netherlands" is rather clumsy, and suggests that there might have been other German occupations of the Netherlands. Perhaps "During the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II..." would be better.

Juliana

In the previous section and elsewhere you refer to Koninginnedag celebrations, here it suddenly becomes "Queen's Day". I think there should be consistency in the nomenclature.
Re Prince Claus, I don't think we need the prompt "a member of the nation that had occupied the Netherlands in World War II". This was mentioned only a couple of paragraphs ago.

Beatrix

The second, very short paragraph, should be merged with the first
The third paragraph needs a little introduction, otherwise it reads like random facts. "On occasion the celebrations have been affected or disrupted. In 1988..." etc. I'm sure you can do better, but something along those lines.

Flea market

There is an ambiguity here: "without a permit and the payment of value added tax". Without both, or without one and with the other?
The precise financial details seem to me to be a bit off-topic.

I'd rather leave them in. ING does this every year and I think it is useful to the reader to know the scale of the thing. It's actually pretty massive. This year, I didn't actually buy anything, but I had an enjoyable time walking around Amsterdam.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:36, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Festivities

"...and after all-night partying take part in the traditional activities of Koninginnedag itself." Apart from floral tributes, what are these "traditional activities"?

Actually, while there are still floral parades in the Netherlands, they no longer take place on Koninginnedag. I will review the source.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:33, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ther should be a smoother link to the sudden mention of May Day - which is observed as a holiday much more widely than Germany and Belgium. Is it a public holiday in the Netherlands?

I'm going to take it out as too troublesome. It is not a public holiday in the Netherlands.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:33, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing too troublesome I think. Brianboulton (talk) 23:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. I'll work on this this evening. Thank you for the review.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:33, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those things are done, I think, but if I have neither made a change in response to your concerns, or made a comment, please let me know. Thank you again.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The article is based mainly on news sources, and does not use the books that have been written on the day, such as ISBN 9789025403485, ISBN 9789076591179, and some of these books in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. (Those are just some examples; I haven't done a thorough search for sources either.) As a consequence, the article omits some important aspects of the celebration, such as the aubade, and drinking oranjebitter. To be sure, these sources are in Dutch, but you can't hope to write an FA about a country's national holiday without using sources in that country's language. Ucucha 10:02, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Respectfully, I disagree with you. I don't see all the names of the sources you cite, but they do not appear to be comprehensive, scholarly sources on Koninginnedag, but from what I can see are programmes from the Queen's visit to towns. The aubade is one of the local customs I speak of generally, basically a concert, it is not unique to the Netherlands or Koninginnedag. If you would like me to add more on the local customs, such as the games, like koekhappen that are played, I most certainly can. I was actually persuaded to take that out at the peer review stage. Oranjebitter is beer. The drinking is mentioned, and I can add more on the drinking if you like, there are several quotes like everyone drinks beer because it is cheap (hmmmm) and readily available. I am happy to work with you on this, and if there are scholarly books on Koninginnedag, to see if I can obtain them.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:18, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Btw, I looked at the two books you specifically cite. The first is clearly a work of fiction, judging from author's article on the Dutch Wikipedia (translation provided. The second is a 31-page brochure which yes, is about Koninginnedag, but it is a 31-page photo brochure. I question the need to obtain it.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:24, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for not checking on those in more detail. Many, but not all, of the books in the KB catalog are programs (and I agree that the programs won't me of much use). ISBN 9028418229, for eample, appears to be a scholarly account of the origin of Koninginnedag. This book has analysis of the meaning of the holiday in the context of the Dutch monarchy. I do think you need more on the festivities—there's more to it than just the vlooienmarkt and Koninginnenach. Things like koekhappen and the aubade (ringsteken is another example) may not be exclusive to Koninginnedag, but they have become associated with it and need to be discussed in a featured article on the holiday.

I don't have much of an interest in working in the article; I only want to prevent an article that doesn't fulfil the FA criteria from becoming an FA. I think you may need to withdraw it from FAC in order to do a more thorough search for sources and work in more material. Ucucha 10:48, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I understand what you are saying, but I am going to await comments from other reviewers before doing so. I have no great problem with doing so but let's see what other people watching the FAC have to say.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:53, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let me think it over. I agree the Ezinga book has useful information, and even with google translate and a Dutch speaker I have on call to check my translations, it may take a little time for me to work through it.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:56, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, a few specifics:

The lead says Koninginnedag is the "official birthday" of Queen Beatrix. The body doesn't say that, and it seems an odd wording to me; sure, we celebrate her birthday on April 30, but that doesn't change the fact that January 31 is her actual birthday.
I think (though I haven't found the sources to confirm it) that the vrijmarkt tradition may be younger than the article suggests; the first mentions of the term in connection with Koninginnedag in Google are from the late 1980s, and the 1982 Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal entry for vrijmarkt only mentions a historical meaning as a market with special privileges. The source the article cites for the origin of the vrijmarkt in the 1960s is not of very high quality.

Ucucha 11:56, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Haven't looked at the article yet (not in a couple of years anyway); Ucucha asked me to look into this. One preliminary remark: Oranjebitter is not beer--it's a liquor. You're possibly thinking of Oranjeboom. Drmies (talk) 15:38, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comments on lead. I'm sorry, but I am not impressed with the lead. The one event of that idiot in his car (sorry, I still get upset over that), while important in its own right, isn't that much a part of Koninginnedag for inclusion in the lead. And the sentence with oranjegekte is grammatically challenged--from 'for the national colour' on the grammar is off. As far as I can see, trimming and reorganizing (history first, meaning etc. second) could lead to two juicy paragraphs. Drmies (talk) 15:47, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with this, I found the lead disjointed, but a re-org/trim would sorth it out. Ceoil 15:52, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That was the year I did not go due to other commitments ... anyway, I've asked Sandy to archive this, I agree enough with Ucucha's points to know what is best. I would be grateful if people would leave comments on the article talk page, because I can't open a peer review I think for two weeks. I'm shuffling this to the bottom of my stack (I have about 3 articles more or less ready for FAC) to allow time to find additional references. Sorry about the drinks. As for the car guy, I was actually afraid if I left it out, people would be aggrieved, it seems to be the other way around . . . oh well. I'll look to bring it back this summer some time. I trust Ucucha and Drmies will be willing to check my work before I renom?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:18, 28 May 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.