Talk:Siam Niramit

Did you know nomination

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 17:43, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that in Siam Niramit, a Bangkok cultural show, an orchestra pit was transformed into a body of water with a length exceeding 50 metres (160 ft)?

Source:

• Ong, Sor Fern (2010-11-11). "One theatrical night in Bangkok - The lavish stage drama Siam Niramit shows that kitsch can teach us a few things about culture". The Straits Times. Archived from the original on 2024-01-08. Retrieved 2024-01-08.

  The article notes: "There is a veritable menagerie of animals including two elephants, a few goats and some chickens; an orchestra pit that turns into a river filled with actual water through which boats sail and fountains erupt; a huge cast of 150 performers togged out in 500 costume changes; and, inevitably, fireworks on stage and even in the theatre aisles."

• Williams, John A. (Fall 2014). "Lighting Spectacles in East and Southeast Asia". Asian Theatre Journal. 31 (2): 603–604. JSTOR 43187443. ProQuest 1562002623.

  The article notes: "Another challenging feature of the staging was the river, a channel of water running across the full length of the forestage, more than fifty meters in length."

• • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Centennial half-crown
  • Comment: I am using "was transformed" instead of "is transformed" because the sources are about the Bangkok cultural show, which shut down in 2021. The Phuket branch of the show is still running.

Created by Cunard (talk). Self-nominated at 01:57, 8 January 2024 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Siam Niramit; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

• A quick comment on the hook: While it's taken directly from the source, I don't think the orchestra pit wording is accurate. From what I've seen, the area that fills with water isn't an actual orchestra pit, but a shallow purpose-built structure in front of the stage, where an orchestra pit would usually be in regular theatres. The Straits Times writer probably used the term as a loose description, for brevity. Unfortunately it's rather misleading, as it makes the reader think of a swimming-pool-sized body of water (which would be impossible to fill within seconds) rather than a recess in the floor just a few centimetres deep. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:42, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
• Apart from the above, article is new, more than long enough, and with no major outstanding issues. (Though it could certainly benefit from some heavy copyediting; there's a lot of proseline paragraphs consisting of individual sentences strung together, each reporting on a fact from one source. Not that it affects DYK eligibility.) QPQ provided. Only needs additional work on the hook. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:32, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
  • ALT1: ... that in Siam Niramit, a Bangkok cultural show, the forestage was transformed into a body of water with a length exceeding 50 metres (160 ft)?

    "Forestage" is supported by the John A. Williams article in Asian Theatre Journal.

    Paul 012 (talk · contribs), thank you for the review and the copyediting, which has greatly improved the article! One of my biggest writing weaknesses is crafting a cohesive narrative from sources that each cover part of the story but collectively don't cover the full story (which is the case for most articles). I worry about introducing original research or synthesis when trying to do a "narrative transition between adjacent reported facts" (quoting from WP:PROSELINE). I've tried improving on that weakness but still struggle a lot with it, so I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or tips. Thank you, Cunard (talk) 09:47, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

    • Good to go with Alt1. As for suggestions on writing style, I'm afraid I don't really have any concrete advice to offer. Philosophically, I do think there's an inherent trade-off between the need to stick to NOR and avoid introducing our own interpretations of sources through editorialising on one hand, and writing readable articles on the other. I can kind of see it as a spectrum—at one end, you're limited to reporting what individual sources say without making any connections between them, while at the other, you're inserting your own viewpoints into the presentation, breaking NPOV. But there's probably a working balance somewhere in the middle. Neutral point of view doesn't mean no point of view, and picking a narrative viewpoint for the reader to follow shouldn't inerently be a bad thing, as long as it's something that most reasonable persons would conclude from the sources. These are just my thoughts, of course. --Paul_012 (talk) 21:44, 24 January 2024 (UTC)