Talk:Gettysburg Cyclorama

Ten Million Dollars

Is the estimate quoted in the News and Observer article which contains information about the sale of the painting. Please do not remove this sentance unless you have a source that refutes this figure, or some other compelling reason to do so.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 16:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Correction in the same paper

The News & Observer ran a detailed correction in Sunday's paper. See http://www.newsobserver.com/308/story/571199.html. CK Tracer22 16:51, 8 May 2007 (UTC)CK Tracer22

Cool. I've been a bit behind, and haven't had the chance to read Sunday's paper. Thanks for clarifying that. I will add the reference to the article as well. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold

I have reviewed this article according to the GA criteria. Please fix the following issues and I'll pass the article.

1. "When the Boston exhibition closed, it was purchased by a Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, investor and moved to a location near the site of the battle, painting and supplemental materials included." Rewrite to "When the Boston exhibition closed, it was purchased along with the painting and supplemental materials by a Gettysburg, Pennsylvania investor who had it moved to a location near the site of the battle." or something to that effect.
   1. Done. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
2. This isn't necessary, but I'm sure you could include Image:Original Gettysburg Cyclorama Building.jpg on Richard Neutra's page. There's some room for it on the article.
   1. Additional pictures have been added by another editor (not me). I think we have enough now. (Maybe too much. What do you think?)--Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
3. "It was abandoned in a warehouse until it was discovered by Winston-Salem, North Carolina, art collector Joseph Wallace King in 1965." Remove the comma after Carolina.
   1. Done--Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
4. If you can, possibly include another subsection about the fourth version that is missing. It would also be beneficial to include any other relevant information about the new building. This is just a suggestion on how to expand the article a little, but if there is no further information then ignore it.
   1. I have looked through the internet and found nothing. The original source for most of this information (The N&O articles) said that the third and fourth versions had been lost. Going through every website I could find, I only found information on the third version, with only a note that a fourth was completed, but I can find no information other than to say that one was completed. I don't even know where and if it was exhibited.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Good job so far, the article has greatly improved throughout this month. Once you have addressed the above issues within seven days, I'll pass the article, even though I don't think it should take that long. If you have any questions or when you are done, please let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Nehrams2020 05:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Additional info?

Note on #3: The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Ed., states in http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/cmosfaq.html "... there is a general rule of parity: anything that is set off from all or part of a sentence requires two commas, unless the word or phrase being set off is at the beginning or end of the sentence, in which case only one comma is required. Some analogous examples:

January 4, 1844, was a day like any other."

That also applies to the proposed rewrite in #1. This may seem odd to readers of US newspapers and informal documents, but an encyclopedia uses more formal writing. By the way, I have a lot of additional material on the Cyclorama history, which I plan to add over the next few weeks. Hal Jespersen 14:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Any additional information with references would DEFINATELY help improve the article. Please be bold and add it if you can.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

GA passed

I have passed this article according to the article meeting the GA criteria. Considering the comma issue, I don't think that the rule applies here. In my third suggestion saying that "... discovered by Winston-Salem, North Carolina, art collector Joseph Wallace King...", I thought that the information for the comma wasn't standing alone and would be equivalent to something like "discovered by American art collector..." or "discovered by serious art collector". That's my rationale for removing the comma in this case, but if you disagree the comma can be readded. For the image in point two, I was actually suggesting that the current image found on this page for the initial building be added to the architect Richard Neutra's page. This article currently has a sufficient number of images. Anyway, good work on the article, and it is indeed worthy of GA status. Make sure that all new information that is added to the article continues to be sourced and well-written. To anyone that is reading this, please consider reviewing an article or two at GAC to help with the current backlog. Each new reviewer helps to cut down on the review time for new candidates. Keep up the good work, the article is an interesting read (I actually would like to see this sometime in my lifetime). --Nehrams2020 06:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Although I realize that this comma issue is not very important (because there is an enormous amount of sloppy writing in Wikipedia and this will not rise to the top of the problems), the Chicago style guide does not include options for exceptions (other than those stated about the beginning or ending of a sentence). In this case, suppose the sentence were "... discovered by Winston-Salem art collector ..." If the city were more well known universally, such as New York or Chicago, this would be a perfectly feasible way to write the sentence. However since the name of the state was added to provide additional information, it is done parenthetically. We are not using real parentheses in this case, choosing the more common commas. So they need to be listed in pairs, just as parentheses need to be. More examples:

Bob Jones, Jr., is a friend of mine.

San Francisco, California, is a beautiful city.

Sacramento (the capital of California) is not so beautiful.

July 1, 1863, was the start of the Battle of Gettysburg.

Hal Jespersen 14:52, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead and fix it then. It should be noted, however, that the Chicago Manual of Style is NOT the only definitive work on formal english writing and should not be taken as the bible truth on all matters. Yes, it may be appropriate to follow it and add the commas, but other style manuals, namely Wikipedia's own, list the alternate version as correct. It is really a moot point; the difference should probably be treated like British/American English conflicts: The article should be internally consistant, and that is it. The whole point to be made here is there isn't ONE and ONLY ONE correct way to do it, and following one of the acceptable methods of using commas in a consitant manner isn't sloppy at all. See WP:MOS#Serial commas for more information on this, where the entire debate is hashed out, and the conclusion reached is: there is no conclusion: Commas should be used consistantly and in such a way as to reduce ambiguity, and that is it. If you want to re-edit the whole article to consistantly use commas the way you describe, by all means go ahead, but it is NOT sloppy to do it the other way.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 18:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

3rd version: Denver or Philadelphia?

Hey, just a quick question on the recent changes. My source, the National Park Service website, says that the third version was on exhibition in Denver and was destroyed to make tents for Shoshone Indians. This was recently changed to say that the third version was exhibited in Philly. Which is right? Or were they BOTH right (third version started in Philadelphia and ended up in Denver maybe?) Something ain't right and we need to jive what these two sources say. Any ideas or further information? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

My methodology on Wikipedia citations is to give precedence to published books (particularly the ones that have citations and references) over websites, newspapers, or magazines. This particular book comes from Thomas Publications, which specializes in historic work about Gettysburg, so I thought its information was credible. If you are confident of your source, I suppose both options could be included and footnoted appropriately to indicate the discrepancy. Hal Jespersen 15:00, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I wrote the original text on the Denver exhibition, and it is based upon the NPS website. In checking with local park rangers here, they agree it is a fact. Scott Mingus 15:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that might be OK, except I would feel more comfortable if there was some source that clearly stated the chronology and included both Philly and Denver as sights for the third version exhibition. I am still leary on making that jump. After all, even though we hold both Hal's source and the NPS website to both be true, it still doesn't seem like enough to connect the two in that way. After all, there may be something we are missing, and to state unequivocally that the exhibiton went from Philly to Denver to Tents is not backed up by the sources. One source says it started in Philly. Another says it spent time in Denver and ended up as Shoshone tents. We have no idea what happened between these events, or even the order. We only know the final event (tents). Also, it isn't clear these are chronologically third and fourth. The NPS site may be calling the fourth version "fourth" only because it is the least known; for all we know it may have been the Brooklyn version that ended up in Denver. This definately needs some more research. Any comments? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I think your concerns about the source discrepancies are admirable; I wish more Wikipedians shared your interest in citations. I am at about my limit of research capability on this topic in the short term. Scott, since you get to the 'Burg more frequently than I do nowadays, perhaps you can inquire along the lines Jayron is asking. I'll email Tim Smith to see if he knows any other secondary sources. Hal Jespersen 16:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I should thank you guys for helping to overhaul this article. I rewrote when a blurb in a Raleigh, NC newspaper sent me on some research to learn more about it. The article here was in a sorry state, it was a complete cut-and-paste job from the NPS website. I rewrote it the best I could from whatever I could find on the net and in the local paper. I am neither an art historian nor civil war buff, and I really exhausted my sources until you guys came along. This is fast becoming a fantastic article. If we can get that issue nailed down, it looks complete enough to get possibly to FA status. Really. I think if we can get the issue of the third and fourth versions relatively complete, peer review should be our next stop. Keep working on this, but my role will have to be as an outside commentator, since you guys have the sources nailed down for this one. If we can get a complete chronology in print for the third and fourth versions (unfortunately, "The guy at the Park said it was so" doesn't really fly as a reliable source) we have the makings of something really cool here. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 22:57, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I've Got A Secret Info

Joe King was a guest on I've Got A Secret in 1966, and some of the information provided conflicts with that in this article.

For example, the painting is described as 410' x 70', he says that it took 17 artists two and a half years to build (starting in 1880), and it has four tons of paint. He says it was commissioned for $200,000 in 1880 (not conflicting, but it's the kind of number that could use a print source). I've added some of the non-volitile info from the episode to the article TheHYPO (talk) 22:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

If you check, we have some print references for all of the sizes quoted in the article. While King's appearance on the game show is interesting, unless we have a print reference to the quote, its hardly reliable. The game show appearence is interesting, and quite good for the article, however its hard to use second-hand references to a 40+ year old game show appearence to report any real hard facts, beyond the actual appearence itself. I'd say the numbers we have now, references to newspaper articles and some national park service information, is pretty good unless we get a hard source conflicting with it. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 03:06, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

A video taped reference can be as reliable as a print reference. The issue is not the media of the source, but the reliability of the information. The question is whether the facts cited from the person who found and owned the painting are as reliable as a small town news article with no sources to check. The question to me is why the person who discovered the painting and had firsthand contact with it would be so far off on the measurements (the article cites it as 22' x 279' - King's appearance cited it as 410' x 70'. That's a significant difference. In fact, the segment brought on the show was cited as 22' x 25' so it would have been the same height as the entire painting by the numbers cited in this article.

Reading the NewsObserver article which is cited for the size of the painting I note that it was "Stored in cylinders" (plural), so the painting must have come in segments - since King brought a 25'x22' segment to the show, perhaps the height of one "row" of segments was 22' and that caused a mistake in the dimensions.

The same news article says: "The second cyclorama, a smaller version, spent nine decades on display at the Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.", yet this wikiarticle says that the 2nd painting was 27' x 359' - which is larger than what it says the original was. The same newspaper article also says that the goalposts had to be removed from a football field to fit the painting (which suggests that the measure of 279', smaller than a football field, is not accurate), and King's claim on IGAS that the painting was 410' and larger than a football field is more apt. I'm not suggesting King's numbers replace the ones in this article, but I think it bears a little further investigation, and possibly, we should consider adding King's figures as possible dimensions to this article.

Here's another article that gives a figure of 376x22 for the Chicago painting. Here's another one that uses the 376' number. TheHYPO (talk) 16:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, the Boston version is fairly well documented, as it was extant as of 2007 (before being removed for restoration), but it looks like we have several different versions of the Chicago data, with no way to decide which is more correct. The best thing may be to cite ALL reliable sources, and indicate only that the data is inconclusive, and that there are multiple figures reported. If it ever gets fully restored, we may have a better idea. But until then, any attempt to determine that one number is "more right" without a reasonable source to say so is speculation, and the best we can do is cite all of them and let the reader figure it out. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Cyclorama exhibit opening

My wiki-fying abilities are pretty limited, so if someone else would like to edit and add the citations, that would be great. The new cyclorama exhibit at Gettysburg National Military Park will open to the public on September 26. Source: http://www.gettysburgfoundation.org/preserve/cyclorama_painting.html Roulo42 (talk) 00:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

I have reviewed this article as part of the GA Sweeps project. I have found the article to be well written and still within the GA criteria. I find that it still meets the GA criteria. The only problem was that ref [3] is a dead link and should be repaired. Otherwise it is fine and I will keep it as GA. H1nkles (talk) 16:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that note. The document that was the reference still exists, but was moved to a new URL at the same website. I have updated the link and it works fine now. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 19:05, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Data Links to Info on the Brooklyn Gettysburg Cyclorama

Hello to all working this topic. I have been researching a conventional book on the neighborhood in Brooklyn where this (the fourth and last) version of the Gettysburg Cycloramas was located in 1886. I'm a novice at best on Wiki and will simply provide you all with the raw links to allow editing with your better understanding of the topic. As I understand it, the Brooklyn Cyclorama was opened in Brooklyn on October 16, 1886 at the southeast corner of Joralemon and Court Streets (where the Municipal Building is today). It shut down at that temporary location on August 6, 1887 and moved into Manhattan at the corner or Fourth Avenue and 19th Street for some time. Things get murky after that, but there is an intriguing article on page 15 of the May 23, 1897 edition of the Brooklyn Eagle about Nashville stating in the text (far right column near the top) that they now had the original Brooklyn cyclorama. This would correspond with the Tennessee Centennial Exposition linked to at the bottom. Beyond that is a mystery. If you use the first link below, it will take you to the Brooklyn Public Library's scanning site with the Brooklyn Eagle searchable from 1841-1902. Type in the box the keywords cyclorama gettysburg and you will get 64 very interesting hits. The New York Times is also searchable at the second link.

http://eagle.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/Default/Skins/BEagle/client.asp?skin=BEagle&GZ=T&AppName=2

www.nytimes.com

http://tsla-teva.state.tn.us/cdm4/centennial_about.php

Syosset1966 (talk) 20:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

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