Template:Did you know nominations/Barton, Kinder and Alderson

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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 SL93 (talk) 20:04, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Barton, Kinder and Alderson

  • ... that the only stained glass exported to the United States by Barton, Kinder and Alderson was assessed an import duty because it was priced too low to be classified as artwork? Source: Ref 6 "These windows were custom-made and are the only known examples of the firm’s work in this country" for the first part of the hook; Ref 9, the US Senate Judiciary Committee report, too long to summarize here, but the import duty part is based on that source.

Created by MB (talk). Self-nominated at 04:09, 27 November 2021 (UTC).

  • New enough, long enough, and adequately sourced. (A duplicate footnote could be re-used rather than repeated, but that's not an issue for DYK.) QPQ done. Earwig found no copying. However, "too low to be classified as artwork" from the hook is not clearly stated in the article. Instead, the article states that the tariff was waived for things that had a combination of three requirements: (1) high value, (2) artwork, (3) destined for a church. It goes on to state that because of not meeting requirement (1), the tariff was not waived. It does not state that failing (1) was assumed to imply also failing (2). So either we need a clear statement that the low value made it a non-artwork, from a source that clearly supports that implication, or we need a better hook. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:19, 27 November 2021 (UTC)
The article says "imported stained glass considered artwork for use in churches, and valued at over $15/sq ft, was duty-free under the Tariff Act of 1930". The source says "stained or painted window glass (or entire windows) which are works of art, when imported to be used in a house of worship valued at $15 or more per square foot, are free of customs duties..." I think the article accurately paraphrases the source. I don't agree with your parsing of this into three requirements. What is artwork is highly subjective and therefore a government tariff cannot possibly be written with such vague language. It gives two objective criterion - (1) destined for a church and (2) high value (which makes it artwork, otherwise it would be construction materials).
When the source discusses why a tariff was assessed, it expresses it in terms of which objective criterion it did not meet (value). The hook merely states it from the perspective of not being artwork. The hook would be quite boring if it said "because it was priced under $15/sq ft. I don't see a problem here. MB 04:33, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
I do not see a problem with the article. The problem is with the hook. The article says "considered artwork", "for use in churches", AND over $15. Your quotation of the source indicates that the article is accurate. Your hook suggests that the artistic value of a work is measured by its price, and that cheap works cannot be artistic. I don't see this implication anywhere in the source or in the article. Both of them suggest instead to me that, although it may be possible for cheap works to be artistic, they cannot have their tariff waived because they are cheap. Similarly, I think it would be reasonable to understand the source as meaning that if a church imports an expensive chunk of stained glass that has not been crafted into stained glass art (maybe for instance bulk glass sheets of some expensive type), then even though it is expensive it could not have the tariff waived because it is not art. As for your final comment, "The hook would be quite boring if": interestingness is important, but not a valid rationale for incorrectness. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:53, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
@MB and David Eppstein: I propose ALT0a: ... that the only stained glass exported to the United States by Barton, Kinder and Alderson could not have its import tariff waived, as is common for artwork in places of worship, because of its low cost-to-size ratio?
This seems correct from what I've quickly read, and should hopefully preserve the interesting factor. Kingsif (talk) 02:12, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
Kingsif, your ALT0a has 215 prose characters; this needs to be below 200 in order to be usable. Can you condense? BlueMoonset (talk) 03:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
@BlueMoonset: - changing "could not have its import tariff waived" to "had to pay import duty", then "as is common for" to "unlike much", should do it I think. Kingsif (talk) 03:54, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
  • ALT0b: ... that the only stained glass exported to the United States by Barton, Kinder and Alderson had to pay import duty, unlike much artwork in places of worship, because of its low cost-to-size ratio? Kingsif (talk) 04:28, 29 December 2021 (UTC)