Talk:William Sharpington

A fact from William Sharpington appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 5 November 2023 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that William Sharpington and his workshop created what was described as "some of the most distinguished" public lettering in post-war England?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2023/November. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/William Sharpington.

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Room for expansion[edit]

Nick Garrett shows this image as Sharpington's work but doesn't give details on attribution. Might have to contact him... Blythwood (talk) 01:15, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

His wife? The plaque is https://openplaques.org/plaques/600 reportedly his]. Blythwood (talk) 02:02, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, looks like that's his wife. Blythwood (talk) 02:04, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Plaque to St. Edmund, Lady Chapel of St. Peter's, Oxford (p. 7)

Other directions for expansion: this, this, this. Blythwood (talk) 02:28, 28 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know nomination[edit]

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by AirshipJungleman29 talk 22:16, 3 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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Comment or view
Article history

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... that William Sharpington and his workshop designed public lettering in post-war Britain? Source: Nash 2002: his "workshop produced some of the more distinguished examples of public lettering in the London area...boards for schools and immunisation clinics throughout Greater London", Nash/Fleuss p. 131 "produced, from the 40s to the 60s, some of the most distinguished public lettering in England" (can be viewed on Internet Archive with registration), The Art of Remembering, Michael Renton "studied lettering with William Sharpington (well-known for his brush lettering)", Oliver p. 916 "W. H. Sharpington who specializes in painted lettering of fine quality", also British Library "the 1939-45 parts [of the war memorial] are by W. H. Sharpington", Getty Images, 1951 "Mr W. Sharpington begins work on a memorial inscription at the Adelphi".
- ALT1: ... that William Sharpington and his workshop created "some of the most distinguished" public lettering in post-war England? sources as above
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Samuel Rajzman

Created by Blythwood (talk). Self-nominated at 23:45, 2 September 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/William Sharpington; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

Hi Blythwood (talk), nice article on an interesting subject, review follows: article created 27 August and exceeds minimum length; article is well written; article is cited inline throughout to what look to be reliable sources; I didn't pick up any issues with overly close paraphrasing in a spot check on the sources I could access, Earwig only picks up an attributed quote; the hook fact is fine but is a little mundane, is there something else to be said? Perhaps a description of his "notably classical" style or the fact that much of his work is now lost? - Dumelow (talk) 21:47, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Dumelow, OK! Will think about an alternative hook. Blythwood (talk) 21:55, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Without pinging, just to say that I'm still thinking through an alternative hook and should have a reply soon. Blythwood (talk) 00:10, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Dumelow, I've been thinking and decided that I'd prefer to keep the original hook if that's OK. My reasons are that I don't think there's a simple term for the style he worked in. ("Classical" nails the feel of timelessness his work was going for but isn't an real one-word summary, the Romans didn't use lower case, "neo-Renaissance" might be nearer the mark.) And going with the idea that much of his work is now lost for me makes the hook a bit depressing and like there's no point in looking at the article-plenty of his work survives and the article has photographs of it. I'd like to keep the original hook. Blythwood (talk) 23:22, 17 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dumelow: Please respond to the above. Z1720 (talk) 18:01, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

New reviewer needed as original reviewer's last edit to Wikipedia was in September. Z1720 (talk) 19:05, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Only real issue I have with the article is the clutter of images. Too many, and squeezing the text. Just a few images in a gallery as a sampling of his work would suffice. As per WP:IG: Wikipedia is not an image repository. ... A gallery section may be appropriate in some Wikipedia articles if a collection of images can illustrate aspects of a subject that cannot be easily or adequately described by text or individual images. And one suggestion regarding the hook: it is acceptable as is, but you could make it more interesting by using the phrase "most distinguished" in the hook - after all, it is already in the article and the sources back this up. Otherwise, good article! Thanks. P 1 9 9 ✉ 14:10, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

P199, sounds great! I've added a gallery, trimmed down the images and added an alt hook. Blythwood (talk) 12:11, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

for ALT1. -- P 1 9 9 ✉ 13:05, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ALT1 states "post-war England". Post which war? The article makes it clear it is 1940s-1960s, so post World War II, but that is not make apparent by the hook. Fritzmann (message me) 13:17, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Post-war usually refers to post WWII, see Post-war. The period after WWI is known as Interwar period. BTW, the hook doesn't need to explain everything, but should "leave the reader wanting to know more" (WP:DYKINT). -- P 1 9 9 ✉ 14:18, 2 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Edits[edit]

Hi theleekycauldron, thanks for the ping. I've added a new source citing Glenn Adamson, although I'd definitely argue the sources are accceptable (I'd regard Mark Simonson as a subject-matter expert, the New York Times has referred to him several times now about the difficulties of getting period lettering detail right. The Astbury source is as I understand it her university thesis.) But I've added a new source now, let me know if you want to add others. With the quote...I think it's a good summary to have in the intro, it's nice to have a quick summary of his historical position and how people view his place in his field, but I've rephrased it to make it feel more like a subjective opinion. But anyway, thanks for promoting it! Blythwood (talk) 22:46, 4 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Blythwood: thanks for the response! This mostly checks out, except WP:THESIS specifies that undergrad theses usually don't make the cut on source reliability. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 06:01, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]