Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Requiem (Reger)/archive2

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 promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 23:44, 18 June 2016 [1].

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Requiem (Reger)

Nominator(s): Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:19, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

This article is about Requiem compositions by Max Reger, notably his Hebbel Requiem on a German poem, but it covers also this poem, a motet the composer wrote on the poem, and his attempt to compose a Latin Requiem when World War I began - with the soldiers who would fall in mind. I tried to have the article ready for the anniversary of Reger's death, but failed, compare Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Requiem (Reger)/archive1. Afterwards, the article received copy-editing by Corinne, Fountains-of-Paris and (for GOCE) by Stfg, who listened to the music and consulted the score. I added the poem now, and my own translation. With thanks for all helpful comments and improvements, I try once more, this time with the centenary of the premiere in mind, on 16 July 1916 in a memorial concert for the composer. Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:19, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Image review

• Suggest condensing the lead caption to just what precedes the first comma. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:26, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

I tried to explain why the title is not Requiem but Zwei Gesänge. Do you think readers won't need that? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:03, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

I think readers won't understand that from what is given now, probably best to explain in article text instead and keep it simple for the caption. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:14, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

The current caption is more confusing than clear. The point is already well made in the article body. The difference needs words and context, why an attempt at a summary in the lead capt? Seems an unnecessarily difficult tasking. Ceoil (talk) 21:27, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

I moved it but see that it is now far away from the image, which I think should stay the lead image. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:17, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Support I have a few tweaks yet to make, but this aricle, on a subject with a complex genesis, is very well explained here. I found the wording and flow very engaging and it certainly drew me in. Note I am out of my dept re content. Ceoil (talk) 07:15, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Support Definitely an improvement since last time. I've read through the article again and am happy that all of my concerns in the previous FAC have been addressed, so this should meet the criteria. Good work! JAGUAR  12:59, 21 May 2016 (UTC)

Support A deep yet lucid article, really awesome. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it, especially after the recent improvements. Sainsf (talk · contribs) 05:20, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Review by Curly Turkey

• Support on prose—Gerda's addressed all my concerns, and the article reads well. I'm not a subject expert, so I can't speak to its comprehensiveness, but it doesn't feel like it's missing anything important. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:15, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
• I'm mainly looking a the prose—I looked at one of the sources only to check the context of a translation.
• It has been described as of "lyrical beauty, a dramatic compactness, and [of] economy of musical means" in which the composer's "mastery of impulse, technique, and material is apparent".—this requires in-text attribution, per WP:INTEXT

done --GA

• and as a result he was excommunicated—should mention he was Catholic, then

good idea, done --GA

• ''[[Isle of the Dead (painting)|''Isle of the Dead'']]''—it's surprising that this links to an article about a painting

clarified (not elegant though) - an article about the compositions is planned ;) --GA

• Following a full day of teaching in Leipzig, Reger died there on 11 May 1916.—he taught a day and died? What of? Was it expected?

now copied from the bio, - no it was not expected that the workaholic died --GA

• "a poetic narrator, divine voice, or even the dead [themselves]"—attribution again

the ref is also the attribution, no? --GA

Not for quotations, no. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:07, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Please teach me something, how then? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:38, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

You just need something like "According to XXX, ..." or "The music critic XXX considered ..." Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:51, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

done here ---GA

• "a sequence of chromatically descending sixth chords"—attribution again, but why not paraphrase? It's not someone opinion, but a statement of fact, no?

yes, but how would you paraphrase if this is the best way to phrase it? - ref is attribution, as above --GA

• "pain, fear, death, and suffering—common associations with chromaticism since the sixteenth century"—attribution again

same again, ref is also attribution

attribution added ---GA

• The pagination of FitzGibbon is off—what you give as p. 3, for instance, is the third page of the document file, but is paginated p. 22 in the document itself (I imagine it's the 22nd page of whatever publication it comes from). The pages given will have to be fixed.

the topic was raised in the first FAC, - I chose the document pages because they appear on top (easily verified), while the journal pages are at the bottom (where you need to scroll to) --GA

If someone's using the original publication, "p. 3" won't be helpful, but "p. 22" will work for both the original publication and the PDF. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:28, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

fine, changed to pages in the journal, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

• {{nowrap|"(The}}—what is this {{nowrap}} for?

no idea, you will have to ask one of the copy-edit-helpers --GA

• the introit and Kyrie—just checking (because I don't know), but is it correct that "introit" is lowercase and "Kyrie" is capitalized?

Introitus would be capitalized, but introit is English, as mass is, - at least my understanding --GA

• adapted to suit Nazi ideology—any interesting details on this?

isn't using a German text instead of Latin, label Totenfeier (Celebration of the Dead), enough? --GA

You mean, it was adapted to Nazi ideology by being put in German? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:26, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

It wasn't translated (put in German), - it had a Christian text and got instead a different content in German, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:41, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Did the Nazi version drop the Christian aspects? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:51, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

of course, - but I wonder if that detail belongs in the article, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:18, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't need a lot of detail. If it dropped Christian references and replaced them with Nazi ones, it should say so. The way it's worded, it could, for example, have retained the Christian references while adding Nazi stuff—for example: "It was then performed with a translated German text in which Christian references were replaced with Nazi ideology", or something—whatever the sources support. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:56, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

look again, I even quoted the one line and its replacement, - the latter in English, - it's not given in German. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:14, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

There could be more, as in the source, up to comparison of one line of text before and after. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

• Reger had composed Requiem settings before ... of a non-liturgical requiem—is the captialization of "Requiem/requiem" correct?

another question to the helpers - I don't like it too much (an "English" word that is Latin), so tried italics now, - --GA

Some nitpicks and personal preferences that won't affect whether I'll support:

• alto (or baritone) solo—I'd drop the parentheses

done --GA

• (To the memory of the German heroes who fell in the 1914/15 War), (The Hermit), (Two songs for mixed chorus with orchestra)—I find glosses in parentheses ambiguous at times—sometimes they can be mistaken for a parenthetical aside rather than a gloss. Putting it in quotemarks as well makes it unambiguous: ("To the memory of the German heroes who fell in the 1914/15 War")

I don't know exactly what you mean, perhaps because I don't know "glosses" in this sense --GA

• Just in case you don't know about it, you might want to look at {{sfnm}}
• (Ich habe nun zwei Chorwerke (Der Einsiedler und Requiem) fertig. Ich glaube sagen zu dürfen, daß diese beiden Chorwerke mit das Schönste sind, was ich je geschrieben habe.)—I'm in the habit of putting these things in footnotes ({{efn}}s), as they break up the flow of the text

Yes, but here he writes about the most beautiful things he has written, - I'd like to show that in the original. (+ in a way: the longer the phrase, the more awkward it is to go back and forth between footnote and text) --GA

—Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:46, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for excellent comments, - I tried to follow, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:37, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

I now added two attributions, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:29, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Comment: thanks for the review, Curly Turkey. On the subject of capitalization and italics, Gerda, please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Classical music titles. When "requiem" is used as a genre, italicising and capitalizing it are definitely wrong. Of course italicize it when it's the title of a specific work or part of such a title. Foreign origin is irrelevant when the word has been taken into English as a common word. Lower case for "introit" is correct since it's used generically and is English. "Kyrie" is confusing. MOS:MUSIC mentions it in lower case, but since the word means "O Lord", and the Lord (God) would be capitalized anyway, there might case for capitalizing it. I don't have an opinion about that. --Stfg (talk) 07:14, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Sorry that I am not familiar enough with English to know if requiem can ever be a genre, - for me it's the rest of the dead. Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei will not be lower case (nor pluralized), and I'd like to see Requiem in the same group. However, do as the MoS commands ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:22, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

genre: I though the genre might be "mass", or "requiem mass", ready to learn, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:06, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Gerda, whether you wish to call it a genre or not, it is a common noun. In English we don't capitalise words just because they are of foreign origin. We don't even italicise requiem. IT's OK to do so capitalise it in title case, but not when writing of "a requiem". It's so much a common noun that in English we can even pluralise it, saying for example that about 5000 composers have composed requiems. The MoS is right about this one. --Stfg (talk) 15:06, 8 June 2016 (UTC) clarified Stfg (talk) 18:10, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Support Gerda Arendt, following my thorough review of this article, I find that it easily meets the necessary criteria for featured article status. This article is very well-written, comprehensive, well-researched, neutral, and stable. This article also follows Wikipedia's style guidelines, with an appropriate lede, structure, and consistent citations. The media in the article is also properly licensed as Public Domain, and the article is of an appropriate length. In the Lateinisches Requiem section, World War I is linked for a second time in the article, as is A German Requiem in the Hebbel Requiem section and SATB in the Structure subsection. There are several other duplicate wiki-links in the latter half of the article. As always, I enjoyed reading and reviewing this article, and I commend you on a job very well done! -- West Virginian (talk) 01:22, 26 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments from jfhutson

• What is the source for the English translation of the poem?

I did it myself, with some help, see talk, --GA

Ah, would help if I read the nomination I suppose-jfh

• "O soul, forget them not, o soul, forget not the dead", "Bless the Lord, o my soul". I've never seen "o" uncapitalized like this. Also, it doesn't match the full translation.

Are we talking the psalm translation? That could be changed. --GA

• Based on the title, one would think the "Performances" section would give a full performance history, but it only mentions one performance.

Changed. When I started the section, I hoped for more, but only this one stood out. --GA

I may come back and look some more later.--JFH (talk) 16:07, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for good comments, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:15, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Alright, I think this explains a complicated subject clearly. support --JFH (talk) 15:28, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Support with minor comments by Lingzhi

I still think "Durch die unendliche Wüste hin" would be better as "wastes", "wasteland" or "wastelands" rather than "desert". I also think the "Structure of Reger's Hebbel Requiem" table looks odd with cells missing below "Molto sostenuto". I think either find a table guru who knows how to stretch the rowspan of that one cell, or add ditto marks below it... but these are minor nitpicks.   Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:09, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

wastelands taken, thank you! --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:10, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

the cells are not missing but the tempo is not changed, - the alternative is to have it once for all of the entries, but then it would appear rather low, - I wanted to see it rather with the first line, - compare "Gloria" in the table in Rossini's mass. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:17, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I've changed the table so that molto sostenuto shows as applying to all the first six rows. Is that better? --Stfg (talk) 10:43, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

That's what I described as possible ("Gloria" in the Rossini), but what I don't like because it appears so low, not next to the first line. It's the first tempo setting at all. Let's see if I can find a trick, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:44, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I could, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:54, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Wehwalt

Support The prose is much improved from the last go-round, and the article was fine in most other ways then. I offer the following quibbles, and I've made some edits hands-on.

• "who had died or were mortally wounded." I'm not certain I appreciate the distinction.

It came with copy-editing, but seems not the best solution for those who had already died and would die in the ongoing war. --GA

• "Following his advice, Reger managed the composition of the introit and Kyrie, combining both texts into one movement." I'm not clear what is meant by "managed". If it denotes an accomplishment, then possibly something like "Following his advice, Reger managed to combine the texts of the introit and Kyrie into one movement." Or maybe strike "managed to" from that.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:27, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps you can do it better, - it's supposed to distinguish the completed composition of introit and Kyrie, while the rest remained fragment or was never even begun. --GA

• "but was interrupted" but had been interrupted

changed --GA

• "The work remained unfinished at Reger's death, and his publisher named the first movement the Lateinisches Requiem, Op. 145a." (after my edits). I've played with this some (the reason for mentioning Reger's death is to absolve him from the soon-to-be mentioned Nazi connection). But I really think you should re-arrange things so that this naming, or designating if you prefer, is the first time the term Lateinisches Requiem is used, at least in that section. To do otherwise seems out of order.

Will think about that. We said before that it was not finished, dropped in 1914 already, No wonder it was still not finished when he died. The publisher took what they could find, and assigned a completely unreasonable Op. number, pairing it with organ music. --GA

• "In sorrow we mutely lower the flags, for into the grave sunk what was dear to us" should sunk be sank?

Can't help the quote in the source. As I don't know the German, so I could not improve the translation. Poetic license? --GA

• "stating the performance duration as 25 minutes" "stating ... as" doesn't seem to work, possibly "giving" for "stating"?

yes, thank you, and for all the good comments, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:42, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Well done. Sorry to be so slow.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:24, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Note -- source review? Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:45, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Source review

Those who go for tons of coding will enjoy the admirable referencing system used here more than I do, but once I cracked the codes and thereby penetrated the references I found all the citations linked appropriately to the refs. Most of the references are to online material; I could have done with a bit more bibliographical information for the printed source: the Peters edition of the Zwei Gesänge and the two Hoernicke press sources – dates and page numbers would be good. Otherwise the sourcing seems to me to meet the FA criteria. I'll reread the article and comment on the generality of the candidacy a.s.a.p., unless it has already been promoted. Tim riley talk 14:29, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Tim. I found one date for a paper, not yet for the other. Both were available online (see urls commented out), but then the paper reorganized the website, sigh. I may find paper copies somewhere in my folders - or not. Peters: I couldn't find yet when they published it first, - last was 2002. Help welcome. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:02, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Peters: they reprinted the first Simrock edition, after taking over the company. Can we derive a date, knowing that? Or should we just take the year of the last edition? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:28, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

All that is wanted is that printed material is given a date and publisher, in a consistent form, enabling people to dig out the reference if they are so inclined. If two different editions have the same page number it doesn't matter which you refer to. Tim riley talk 14:05, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• I heartily endorse Tims' view; personally I believe less is the new more; but this is fine. I did not spot check. Also am a requiem fanboy. Sorry FAC bosses. On the face this is huge advance and would like to see more. Ceoil (talk) 07:32, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

• WP:OVERLINK – I'd say "dramatist" is an unnecessary link to an everyday word; I doubt very much that people need a link to "German language"; and specifically (MoS) we don't link the major religions, of which Christianity is still widely regarded as one; there are repeated links to World War I, A German Requiem, SATB, pedal point, Schütz (with a third link later, this time calling him Heinrich Schütz), homophonic [there's a deadly trap for spell-checkers!], and Wiesbaden.

I unpiped playwright, but left the link which I had not added

I delinked German (language)

World War I: I reduced the links to only the first time, and said just "war" or "World War" later, because at Reger's time, there was only one, and that should be clear by then.

Brahms Requiem: I left one link for the German name and one (much later) for the English, - think that's clearer.

Schütz, homophonic, Wiesbaden: left once, - thanks for the precise collection! --GA

• Hebbel Requiem
  • "Edition Peters published it in 1928, stating the performance duration as 25 minutes, although the duration implied by the metronome marking is 14 minutes." The second part of this sentence, although I'm sure it's true, looks very like original research to me. I'd feel more comfortable if a third-party citation could be found on the discrepancy between the two timings.

The "13–14 minutes" come from the citation right after it, no? --GA

• Evaluation

**Just checking – in the Lenssen quote does the author really use the odd phrase "mid-aged man" rather than the idiomatic English "middle-aged man"? I can't open the full text to check. (Ought the reference to mention that a subscription is required?)

The abstract opens to me without restriction, and has mid-aged man. --GA

True, and fine for this quote, but if you're relying on the full text for anything you should, I think, mention that it requires subscription; fine as it is if you're not, of course. Tim riley talk 07:53, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I found this article of great interest. I count myself a classical music buff, but had never so much as heard of Reger's requiem(s). I shall go in search of it on the indispensable Naxos online library. The above points are all very minor, and I look forward to supporting the elevation of the article to FA in due course. – Tim riley talk 14:05, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, Tim, for good points, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:08, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Support – happy to add it for an excellent article that seems to me to meet all the FA criteria. – Tim riley talk 07:53, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Bencherlite

Despite the above reviews, I have some concerns. I took one small section, "Scoring" and found problems.

• "The Requiem employs a large orchestra[27] of two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, three percussionists and strings.[8]" I don't know why we need two citations for the same orchestration - [27] doesn't explicitly say "large" either, so I'm unsure what the mid-sentence citation is for.

Thank you for looking closely. The passage is one of the early parts of the article, which explains some. I'll try to fix:

removing the first ref, - the better one just wasn't there yet in 2010. Dropping "large" - those who are interested in such matters will know that an orchestra with that brass section is large, - would you agree. --GA

• "It requires a similarly large chorus" - "similarly" is not the word to use here. More importantly, what is the source for a large chorus being required? It is not mentioned in source [30], the Hyperion booklet, which is the next footnote used.

changed to "a chorus to match", - it takes a few singers to be heard and understood over the brass (even if no source said so) ;) --GA

• "these requirements mean it has been rarely performed." No source (ditto) - nothing to support either the rarity of performance or the claim that rarity is based on the need for that size of orchestra plus chorus. (The orchestra looks to me to be pretty standard forces - triple not double woodwind, but even that's not unusual - we're hardly talking Mahler 8 proportions).

We [can] drop that sentence, however it's true that the rather short piece is rarely performed. --GA

• "Reger himself wrote a version for piano.[30]" I don't see this in the Hyperion booklet - yes, they record a version accompanied by piano but it is not stated that the version was written by Reger himself, unless I've missed something.

scoring source added, saying "Reger selbst erstellte den Klavierauszug der Komposition" --GA

• "To make the music more accessible" - is there a source for this claim that this was the motivation behind the arrangement?

yes, the program notes, added, --GA

• "The organ version was premiered in the Marktkirche in Wiesbaden" - is there a source for this, since it's not in [4], the CV of Reger's life?

yes, same, --GA

In addition:

• The "Recordings" table sorts by first name not surname.

will try to fix --GA

the conductors are by last name, the soloists are not worth sorting (sometimes one, sometimes four, a short table anyway), in a similar discussion one view was: don't make it sortable then at all, but I think that takes it too far. What do you think? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:42, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

• Who is the publisher of the 2001 recording?

St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden, as far as I know --GA

• The one-sentence section "Modern performance" ought really to be merged somewhere else or omitted - probably into a renamed "Scoring and performance" section (which is effectively what it is already, in fact).

good idea, done --GA

• Shouldn't Wiesbadener Tagblatt and Allgemeine Zeitung be linked / in italics? (I note that this is not Allgemeine Zeitung.)

I didn't notice that the Tagblatt has an article now, thank you for pointing that out, - ill to the other --GA

Personally I think that 3 paragraphs of biographical background is excessive. This is not the biography of the composer and we don't need to summarise a composer's life at the start of an article about one of his works. Bencherlite^Talk (using his alt account Bencherheavy) 14:11, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

When I wrote the section, our biography of the composer didn't have the information, - I added it there only later. It could be reduced now, but you were the first to mention it, - I'd like the voices of others. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:35, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I think Bencherlite's view makes sense. Keep the focus on the work and let the background be the background to the work rather than tangential (or not even that) matters. --Stfg (talk) 20:03, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I looked what to drop but found little that is not in one or the other way connected to the three works. Studies in Wiesbaden, explaining why Wiesbaden has a special relationship to the works, setting texts by Hebbel, dealing with Toteninsel, circumstances in Meiningen and Jena where he composed two of the works, - what should go? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:18, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Personally I don't object to any of that section. But it doesn't explain why Wiesbaden "has a special relationship to the works", nor why Toteninsel is relevant. I think that all of the first two paragraphs could go, except that the sentence about "Gebet" could be moved to a suitable place the last paragraph, saying something like "He had set words by Hebbel before, the first such work being "Gebet" (Prayer), Op. 4 No. 1." I don't feel strongly about it, but it would be one way to go. --Stfg (talk) 15:08, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

2 of 6 recordings were made in Wiesbaden, where he lived at several street addresses, well remembered, - which doesn't have to be pointed out ;) - I prefer to have a chronological approach to the background, - the reader knows that Hebbel plays a role from the first sentence, so can make the connection when the setting is mentioned, without a finger pointing. If I'd say "Toteninsel" is relevant for his approach to death, it would be OR, but showing the image provides a look at the context: the image that was "found in every Berlin home", as a quote says. I bet Reger didn't compose his work without knowing and meaning the image. Did you know that its scene was kind of quoted in the Jahrhundertring, as the Brünnhildenfelsen? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:38, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

I didn't know that, but I don't see how it's relevant. Many works in all art forms reference death, and Reger presumably knew several. So what? "I bet ..." is OR already. As for Wiesbaden, I don't see how the fact that 2 of 6 recordings were made in a place where Reger lived is at all interesting. But look, you said "It could be reduced now" and asked for suggestions. Take it or leave it. I'm not ging to get dragged into a major debate over it. --Stfg (talk) 18:08, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't clear about the Jahrhundertring relation was just to point out how important that image was for many in that era, - not going to mention it in the article, nor anything about Wiesbaden other than the facts. An article about Reger's composition Toteninsel (Reger) is planned. Thank you, will think about changes, - at the moment I see two who want the background section shorter vs. nine who saw no problem, and myself. Thank you for thinking about it. As for Requiem/requiem, I looked again and found only one instance of "a ...Requiem" (beginning of History), - If you feel strongly about lower case there, please change. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:02, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

My thought on background length is that reasonable minds can differ but it's within the range where I tend to suppress "how I would do it" and defer to editor discretion. So I'm inclined to think that it should not be an actionable point at this stage.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:21, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 23:44, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

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