Talk:Nigel Williams (conservator)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Nigel Williams (conservator)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: KJP1 (talk · contribs) 07:08, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Pleased to pick this one up. Will complete within 3 days. KJP1 (talk) 07:08, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Quick fail criteria assessment

1. The article completely lacks reliable sources – see Wikipedia:Verifiability.

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2. The topic is treated in an obviously non-neutral way – see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

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3. There are cleanup banners that are obviously still valid, including cleanup, wikify, NPOV, unreferenced or large numbers of fact, clarifyme, or similar tags.

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4. The article is or has been the subject of ongoing or recent, unresolved edit wars.

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5. The article specifically concerns a rapidly unfolding current event with a definite endpoint.

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Article passes quick-fail assessment. Main review to follow.

Main review

1. It is reasonably well written.

a (prose):

The prose is of a very high standard and I will certainly Pass here. I've put it on hold for now, and made some suggestions/raised some queries below for the nominator to consider.

Lead

• "taking the position of Chief Conservator of Ceramics and Glass" - does one "take" a position, or "take up" a position?

Changed to "became."

• "There his work notably included the successful restorations..." - the positioning of "notably" reads a little oddly to me. Perhaps, "There his most notable work included the successful restorations..."

Removed "notably."

• "the successful restorations of the Sutton Hoo helmet and Portland Vase,..." - perhaps, "the successful restorations of the Sutton Hoo helmet and the Portland Vase,..."? If you agree, I'd also put a "the" before Portland Vase at the end of the infobox.

Done.

• "in his early- to mid-twenties he conserved many of the objects" - is the hyphen after early required?

I'm not sure if it's required, but it seems supported by this: Suspended hyphens.

• "After nearly 31,000 fragments of shattered Greek vessels" - given that "vessels" can mean "vases", as here, but also "ships", as in HMS Colossus, I wonder if readers may get a little confused. I don't know what was aboard Colossus, but is there another word that could be used? I see you use "vases" later.

Changed to "vases."

• "his significant contributions to the field of conservation." - perhaps, "his significant contributions in the field of conservation."?

Changed to "in."

Early years

• "Nigel Williams was born on 15 July 1944 in Surrey, England" - not a prose point, but Surrey, although not the largest of English counties, is still quite large. Do we know where in Surrey he was born?

Unfortunately no, his obituaries just say Surrey.

• ""Conservation" was not a recognized profession at the time" - I'm not sure it needs the quotes, which it doesn't have in the lead.

Removed quotation marks.

• "the London University of Archaeology" - again, more a factual than a prose query, but I don't know this institution and it doesn't sound quite right. Nor can I find it on Google, and I don't have access to the source. The University has a complex, collegiate, structure with some central academic institutes. Are we certain it is not part of one of the colleges, such as this[1]?

I think you're right that it's the UCL Institute of Archaeology, and I have linked it accordingly. His obituaries refer to it as the "University of Archaeology," and he himself referred to it that way when citing his thesis in one of his works. UCL did indicate that they have a copy of his thesis, which suggests that it is one and the same with the so-called University of Archaeology.

At the British Museum

• "the lifting of a Roman mosaic and a medieval tile kiln from the ground". - not sure what ground? Presumably at one, or more than one, archaeological site. Is it possible to be clearer?

Changed to "from the earth." The source says "His tasks ranged from the conservation of metals (including clocks and watches!) and ceramics and all forms of organic material to the lifting from the ground of a Roman mosaic and a medieval tile kiln, both of which are part of the permanent exhibition in the British Museum." I assume it means the removal from their locations in situ after they were uncovered.

Sutton Hoo

• "it had previously been restored in 1945–46 by Herbert Maryon" - elsewhere you use full dates, i.e. 1945-1946. It should certainly be consistent, and I think full dates is the preferred style.

Changed to full dates there, and one other place that had the shortened version.

HMS Colossus

• "He worked as if he were alone, and many people remember the moment in the resulting Chronicle programme" - Not prose, but you could bluelink "Chronicle".

Done.

Portland Vase

• "First known to have been sighted in 1600–1601" - this makes it sound like a dodo, or an elephant. Perhaps, "First recorded in 1600–1601"?

Done, that's much better.

• "After being on display in the British Museum since 1810" - not sure the "After being" is required?

Changed to "It was placed on display in the British Museum in 1810."

• "By 1988 the adhesive used was "very yellow and brittle, with poor adhesion" - to avoid the, near, repetition, could you use "glue" rather than adhesive?

Changed to "By 1988 the adhesive used had yellowed and weakened."

Death and legacy

• "comes a "virtual" copy of a gilded replica of the vase" - I'm afraid I don't understand what this is, although I agree the source is no more clear. I first thought it meant an image of the replica, but, on re-reading the source, I think it means that the presentation is virtual, i.e. they hand the copy out at a ceremony, and then take it away again. I think it needs clarification.

Changed to "comes a 'virtual' image." From an email with someone who coordinates the prize: "The trophy is at the Wedgwood Museum; sometimes on display but mostly in storage. It did travel to where the Prize was given once but it was such a big issue with insurance that it never happened again. So the winner receives a 'virtual' trophy."

b (MoS):

I should start by saying that MoS is not my area of greatest strength. Broadly, I think the article is compliant, but I make a few suggestions below. Have left this section On Hold, to allow the nominator to consider, but not necessarily accept, the suggestions.

• Citations in the lead - Given that material in the lead is repeated in the body of the article, I think the preferred style is not to use citations in the lead, unless they support direct quotes, [2]. Here, some do, but some don’t. An example:

"his work notably included the successful restorations of the Sutton Hoo helmet[4][5]" - given we are told this, with cites, in the Sutton Hoo section, do we need the cites here?

This is largely a thing of personal preference. I'd rather cite material than not cite it, and, given that Wikipedia is dynamic, citing material in the lead helps ensure that it stays supported even if material further down the article is later changed. On second thought, as only one sentence other than those with quotations is cited, I've removed the citations from that one sentence.

• Punctuation inside or outside of quotes - The guidance, here, [3], suggests, "For the most part, this means treating periods and commas in the same way as question marks: Keep them inside the quotation marks if they apply only to the quoted material and outside if they apply to the whole sentence." So, as an example, but there are more:

"The process was televised, "transform[ing] him into a television personality." - Given that the full stop pertains to the whole sentence, not just the quoted clause, I would suggest it should be outside of the quotes? This is how you do it in this example:

"After joining the British Museum in 1961 and studying conservation, Williams worked on "all types of antiquities". Even if I am wrong, I would suggest we need consistency.

The common nexus here is logical quotation, which puts punctuation marks inside quotation marks when they are part of the quotation, and outside when they are not part of the quotation. You're right though that it does look odd without knowing that; I hadn't even realized logical quotation was even a thing until someone on WP pointed it out. Another way of dealing with it might be to cut down on the use of direct quotations (as per FunkMonk's good advice here), which I will start doing later today.

• Over citing - I wonder if there are a few instances of over citing. Guidance is given here, Wikipedia:Citation overkill. Two examples:

"in the summer of 1967 he helped with the moulding of the ship impression.[6][9][13][14] - do we really need four cites for this short clause?

"For 20 years Williams lived with his partner Myrtle Bruce-Mitford,[46][47][48]" - and three for this one?

Removed one of those from the the first example. Otherwise I think each source tends to contain slightly different information. In the first example, for instance, one speaks of Williams's role, one is a technical report, and one adds a bit of color and a photograph of Williams during the process. In the second example, one speaks to how long they were together, the second (and third) refer to Bruce-Mitford as Williams's "partner" (it's unclear in the first one), and the third again adds a photograph. So maybe a little indulgent, but I don't think complete overkill.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

a (references):

Just a few points/queries here.

• I've not encountered Digital object identifier references before. Should they indicate that they are behind paywalls, if one doesn't have institution access? I see, conversely, you do indicate Open Access for the James Davis article.

Done.

• Page numbers. Some of the references don't indicate page numbers in the body of the article, but have them in the Bibliography. An example is Citation 45. As you're using sfn, and do have in-line page numbers elsewhere, would it not be easier for the reader, and more consistent, to have them in-line throughout? As an aside, related to the above, Cite 45 takes me to a Columbia University sign-in page.

When there isn't a page number in the citation, it's because a) the source doesn't have page numbers, b) the citation is to the whole work, or c) the source is only one page. the latter is the reason for citation 45: it feels redundant to pinpoint page 45 as the page from which the information is derived, when the entire source only takes up one page. I've corrected citation 24, however, which incorrectly lacked a page number.

• Daily Mail - Cite 46 takes me to the same, closed, Columbia University site mentioned above. I can't find the article online. Perfectly happy to AGF, as the sources I can check, check out, but you may have problems with the DM as a source at FAC.

Thanks for pointing this out. I haven't been able to find links that aren't institution specific, so for the time being I've just marked them as {{closed access}}. I'll try reaching out to Gale Group to see if they might be able to help.

• In terms of factual accuracy, my only concern relates to "the London University of Archaeology" covered in Prose above.

Addressed above.

b (citations to reliable sources):

The sources all look completely reliable.

c (OR):

I do not see any evidence of OR.

d (No evidence of plagiarism or copyright violations):

The Copyvio Detector gives 39.4% on the Icon article but this is accounted for by the titles and the quotes. No issues with plagiarism that I can see.

3. It is broad in its scope.

a (major aspects):

The major aspects of his, sadly short, life are all well covered.

b (focused):

The article focuses on his life and works and doesn't digress.

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy The article's impeccably neutral.

5. It is stable The article's stable.

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales):

Again, image rights are not my strong suit and you may have problems with the Fair Use rationale for the Williams image if you're heading to FAC, but it seems reasonable to me, and the article would indeed be diminished without it.

b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

No reason not to Pass, but personally I'd put in an image of the Portland Vase. At two, the article's hardly over-burdened currently and Commons has many nice images. I see it also has the Doubleday image, which the Williams image mimics. A possibility? I've Passed on this but I would urge you to think about including the Vase.

Added the Portland Vase photo. I'm not really sure where the Doubleday photo would go except in place of the vase photo, so have not added that one.

7. Overall:

Pass/Fail:

Right, I think I'm done. It is a great article and was a pleasure to read and to review. I'll now put it on hold to give the nominator opportunity to review the comments. KJP1 (talk) 23:44, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks for your careful read and good suggestions, KJP1. I've incorporated almost everything that you suggest, and responded to your comments above. Please let me know if there's anything else you recommend! --Usernameunique (talk) 18:54, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

It was my pleasure. And thank you for producing such a well-written and well-organised article that taught me a lot about a significant individual of whom I'd never heard. I have made a small tweak to the University of London wording, with which I hope you are happy. Very pleased to Pass. KJP1 (talk) 21:38, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

TFAR

Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Nigel Williams (conservator) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:18, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

The Daily Mail

David Gerard, you recently removed a 1992 article from the Daily Mail from both this article and from the Rupert Bruce-Mitford article. Your rationale was that "rm claims sourced entirely to deprecated source WP:DAILYMAIL". I restored the source, explaining that a "1992 source is old enough that it should not be automatically disqualified." And in turn, you again removed the source, writing in one edit comment that "So provide something convincing, this is a deprecated source from well into the Daily Mail's utterly unusable period, it's not a suitable reference", and in another that "no, 1992 is well into Daily Mail's massively fabricated and unusable period".

As an initial matter, we've been here before. After you removed two Daily Mail articles, coincidentally both from 1939, from Sutton Hoo helmet and George Sidney Herbert, I left a note explaining the reasoning for keeping them, and noting that per the WP:DAILYMAIL which you cited, "old articles may be used in a historical context". As I also said at the time, "The desire to remove the Daily Mail as a source is certainly understandable. At the same time, it would help to treat older Daily Mail articles more generously than newer ones. And it would be even more helpful to look for non-Daily Mail sources which could replace Daily Mail sources, rather than entirely removing all Daily Mail-sourced material. After all, the Daily Mail's demonstrated issues with reliability do not mean that what the Daily Mail reports on is not worth including in Wikipedia; they just mean that better sources are needed." You did not respond.

Of course, age is just one part of the equation. Context also matters. WP:DAILYMAIL points out that the Daily Mail is "generally unreliable" and "generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist" (emphases mine). This is a much more nuanced and context-dependent take than your claim that it the paper "utterly unusable". Indeed, WP:DAILYMAIL goes out of its way to note that "The restriction is often incorrectly interpreted as a 'ban' on the 'Daily Mail".

So moving back to the 1992 article in question, we have a source that needs to be evaluated for both age and context. For age, although you say that "1992 is well into Daily Mail's massively fabricated and unusable period", it's unclear where you are getting this from; if you could point me to guidance on this point, that would be helpful. In any event, 1992 is two and a half decades before the Daily Mail was deprecated by RfC. And in context, the source adds interesting but uncontroversial information, is largely backed up by other sources (I say "largely", because the Daily Mail article adds a few facts of its own), and does not suffer the Daily Mail's shortcomings such as sensationalism. Meanwhile, it seems clear that you did even look at the source before removing it. Your edit removing it came at 23:42; you were already editing another page seconds, and you had two edits at 23:39. The link to the article brings up a paywall, which it is unlikely you would have found your way around in three minutes.

We also have a third opinion. Nigel Williams (conservator) is a featured article, and at its nomination, underwent a source review. The Daily Mail source was not an issue then, and it should not be now. I'm adding it back to both articles. --Usernameunique (talk) 06:00, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

1992 is well into the fabricated sources era of the Daily Mail. Consensus has yet to set a date; so if in doubt, you should not presume that consensus from two broad general RFCs does not apply, just because you don't want it to. "Exceptions are possible so I want this to be an exception" isn't a good argument.

"Nuance" that is unique to the DM turns out, over and over, to be embellishment or fabrication on the DM's part. If there is a detail that is there and nowhere else - like, in, say, a Reliable Source - then there is no reason to trust the DM on it.

A featured article that has known bad sources is in danger of defeaturing.

The source should not be used in Wikipedia. If this is the only source for the claim, then the claim needs to go too.

If you really want to override two broad general RFCs, then WP:LOCALCONSENSUS explains why you can't just declare it so on a talk page.

Do you think your argument to keep the DM cite would stand at wP:RSN? If so, we can take it there - David Gerard (talk) 09:07, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the Kennedy cites. In general, featured articles can't have unreliable sources, let alone actually-deprecated sources. In this specific case, the claims from the deprecated source are additional quirky interesting stuff and colour, i.e. precisely the sort of Daily Mail content that they have an extensively documented history of fabricating. I see that some of it is vague statements about living persons too. The article is stronger without this sort of thing. We really don't need tabloid "colour" - David Gerard (talk) 11:34, 25 December 2020 (UTC)