Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Constitution Square State Historic Site/archive1

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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 GrahamColm 19:25, 19 September 2012 [1].

Constitution Square State Historic Site[edit]

Constitution Square State Historic Site (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Acdixon (talk · contribs) 16:04, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is presently a good article and has undergone a peer review since its promotion. The park contains the first post office constructed west of the Allegheny Mountains as well as replica buildings and artifacts that reflect the city of Danville's history as the site of the conventions that composed the first Kentucky Constitution and as an early center of political activity in the area both before and after Kentucky's statehood. A former state park, it is now operated by the county government of Boyle County, Kentucky. My interest was sparked by a visit last February where I took many of the pictures use to illustrate the article. I'm hoping for promotion to FA in time to make this TFA for October 15, 2012, the 75th anniversary of the donation of the land for the park to the state of Kentucky. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 16:04, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by doncram Hi. This looks like a nice article. I mostly edit NRHP articles and am not providing a complete review. But looking at the article i am struck by the mention of "The site comprises the majority of the Constitution Square Historic District which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 2, 1976." In which [[Constitution Square Historic District is currently a redlink. If there is a great amount of overlap, why not cover the Historic District in this article, and have the NRHP name redirect to here? From looking at National Register Information System (NRIS) data, it seems the district is 8 acres (3.2 ha) in size, is bounded by Main and Walnut Sts. and by 1st and 2nd Sts, and it includes 7 contributing buildings. It may be that the Ephraim McDowell House is included in the district but not in the site; I don't see that as an obstacle to covering the district in the site article. Or, if there is reason to keep the historic district article separate, it would still improve the position of this site article to create the historic district article at a start or stub level.

Also, I see the NRHP nomination document for the district is already given as a source in the article (PDF available at https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/76000847_text. It would be good to also incorporate the accompanying photos into that reference. 19 photos, many from 1975, are included in the photos document, available at https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/GetAsset/NRHP/76000847_photos.

Hope these brief comments help. --doncram 17:39, 19 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm no expert on the requirements of NRHP listings and such, but having visited the site and examined the NRHP nomination form, I think there are at least three buildings that are part of the historic district but not part of the historic site. They are:
There is also something called a "brick dependency" in the district, but since I'm not sure what that is, exactly, I can't say whether it is in the historic site or not. It is not covered in this article, in any case. According to the NRHP document, the McDowell House was (is?) listed separately on the NRHP and obviously has its own article on Wikipedia. The Apothecary Shop also was (is?) listed on the Register and, if I understand correctly, is either connected to or directly adjacent to the McDowell House. It does not have its own wiki article but is discussed in the McDowell House article. That means that the Silversmith Shop is the only building presently without wiki coverage.
One option, as you mention, is to try and cover the historic district content in this article. I think that is unwise, as it would be necessary to restate (duplicate?) content from the free-standing article on the McDowell House and Apothecary Shop here. Either that, or we'd have to redirect Ephraim McDowell House to this article as well, which to me seems imprudent, since the historic site and the McDowell House are pretty clearly distinct entities.
Another option would be to make this the article about the historic district, transplant the McDowell House information here, and redirect both Constitution Square State Historic Site and Ephraim McDowell House to the renamed article. Although the title would then be more accurate, I think more people are familiar with the separate names of the historic site and the McDowell House than the historic district.
That leaves the option of creating a stand-alone article for the historic district, distinct from the other two. Either that article would contain a ton of copied content, or it would be a simple list of what's included in the district, with links to this article and the McDowell House and some meager amount of content on the Silversmith Shop and maybe the "brick dependency".
I'm not sure that any of these are really good options, but I think the third is the one I'd be most inclined to support. With my limited experience with NRHP articles, I might not be the best one to create that, though. I'd be interested on other comments from the community. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 17:25, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:The_Governor’s_Circle_at_Constitution_Square.jpg: given that the US does not have freedom of panorama for sculpture, you need to account for the copyright status of the statue here. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:36, 20 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Lemurbaby : You've put a lot of hard work into developing this article, and it's an interesting and informative read. Just a few points to look at. Lemurbaby (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • First, the over-referencing. You don't need to have a reference at the end of each sentence, especially when consecutive sentences use the same exact source/reference. I'd recommend going through and pruning so that the reference only follows the last sentence in clusters where all sentences share the same source. Lemurbaby (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I hear this one from time to time. It's been my practice to only consolidate refs if the entire paragraph comes from the same source, and usually I only do that if someone complains. There are a few reasons. First, the current standard of only citing "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" is much too vague for my taste. How am I supposed to know what is likely to be challenged? And further, how much of a pain will it be for me to find which source contained the information if it isn't challenged until months or years down the road? Second, if content gets moved around (by me or another editor) I'd like to be sure that the cite goes with it. Otherwise, we can get information cited to the wrong source, which is bad. Third, it encourages editors who add information to the page to cite it, since everything else on the page is cited. Finally, I'm largely unconvinced by arguments that say that citing every sentence decreases readability. I think consolidating cites potentially creates larger problems than any minor readability issues it might raise. This has been my practice on each of my previous FAs, and while reviewers do comment on it from time to time, none have been so adamantly opposed to it that they opposed the article's promotion. A few have even agreed with my method or at least my reasoning. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 20:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Second, consistency in referencing. For what appear to be newspaper or magazine articles I see sometimes you include the article title in the short-form note, while in other instances you leave it out but include a page number. Your system isn't quite clear for me. Lemurbaby (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • My preference is to give author and page number. However, when the author is not available (as with the Spindletop report), I give title and page number. When the source is non-paginated media (like web pages), I give author and title. Finally, when there is no author and no pagination, I give title and publisher. Does this help? Acdixon (talk · contribs) 20:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Third I'd suggest putting all your urls into an archiving system like Webcite so they can be accessed for all time and don't run the risk of going dead. Lemurbaby (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not too familiar with this resource. You may have to help/elaborate. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 20:27, 24 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: Supported below I peer reviewed this article a couple months ago, so I made most of my comments then a few more small things I noticed when re-reading the article:
  • "The Great American Brass Band Festival and the Kentucky State Barbecue Festival are among the annual events held at the site." I'd suggest flipping this around, "Annual events held at the site include..."
  • "A portion of this plot was set aside as the city square, but unlike a typical city square that is located near the center of the city, Danville's city square lay near the eastern end of the city" Some repetition of "city square" here.
  • Always thought this was an icky sentence. I've made some adjustments, but I'm not sure it's much better. See what you think. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 17:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "it is believed that advocates of the academy's establishment combined their efforts with those of the individuals who established Centre College in Danville" Not sure that there's a good way around it, but you might want to try to avoid the "it is believed" construction here.
  • Yeah, that's a little difficult, but see how it reads now. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 17:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The entirety of the Governor's Circle honors Isaac Shelby, Kentucky's first and fifth governor, who was said to have been responsible" There's a tense change here, might want to avoid that.
  • "The transfer took several months to complete and was finalized on March 6, 2012." I think that stating when it was finalized would imply that it took several months in a more concise way, right?
  • Yeah, that makes sense. The transfer itself didn't begin in June 2011, but that's trivial. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 17:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "When the court moved to Danville in 1785, it ordered that two men determine the cost of constructing a courthouse, jail, and other buildings needed by the court." Some repetition of "court" here.
  • " In 1827, Goldsmith sold the house to Dr. Jefferson Polk, a newspaper publisher who developed an interest in medicine during a cholera outbreak in 1833 and went on to become a doctor who practiced briefly in Danville before moving to Perryville, Kentucky." I feel like there might be a little too much detail here.
  • I made some copyedits, feel free to revert if you don't care for them. Overall it looks quite good. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:20, 26 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Fixes look good, any issues that I could come up with have been resolved. Great work, as usual. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:12, 27 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Not keen on the opening "...site ... is a ... site" repetition.
    • Hadn't noticed that. Dropped "historic site". "Open-air museum" is probably sufficient. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You say "from the state" but then, in the following para, link the state.
    • Not sure exactly what the problem you are referencing is here, but I've changed the first instance of "state" to "Department of Parks", which is more specific. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "of an Indian attack". Not sure about how PC Indian is these days, but in any case, it may be worth linking Indian appropriately for international readers who may not be quite sure what people from India are doing attacking pioneers in 18th Century USA.
    • I run into this a lot, since conflicts with the Native Americans were common for early Kentuckians. Someone, maybe Kevin Myers (talk · contribs), told me the preferable way to handle it is to specify the tribe, if known. If not, as in this case, Indian is OK for period-specific references, since that's what they were called at the time. This is referencing that period, but it's also about a modern park. Not sure which applies here, but I linked to Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • should that "due to" be "because of"?
  • Sorry to be picky but the reptition of dissolution in consecutive sentences is a little boring.
    • Being picky is the point of FAC, isn't it? :) Changed one of them to "disbanded", since that was the first synonym that came to mind. Feel free to suggest another. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "within .5 miles " a leading zero on the conversion but not on this?
  • Are there any free maps you could use to illustrate the position of some of these things?
    • Not that I'm aware of. I might still have the brochure I got there in February, but the map on it wouldn't be PD. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Any reason why you select "pound sterling" rather than just £?
    • Because my keyboard doesn't have the "£" mark. ;) Copied and pasted it in. Does the £ go before the number (as with U.S. dollars) or after? I put it before. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure you need to link Major.
    • I typically link all military ranks, and this is the first time I've gotten that comment. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "with brick laid in common bond " is that the common bond you really meant, or did you mean Brickwork#American bond?
  • "Great American Brass Band Festival " is linked three times in the article, unnecessary.
    • Eliminated one, leaving the one in the lead and the first mention in the body, per my usual practice. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Spindletop Research, Inc.. " spare period.
  • Do you need both Category:National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky and Category:Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Kentucky and Category:National Register of Historic Places in Danville, Kentucky?

The Rambling Man (talk) 09:53, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the review. I'll try to respond to any further comments as soon as possible. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 13:49, 28 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]


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