Wikipedia:Featured article review/Isambard Kingdom Brunel/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 19:53, 12 November 2009 [1].

Isambard Kingdom Brunel[edit]

Review commentary[edit]

Toolbox
Notified WikiProject Biography, WikiProject Civil engineering, PopUpPirate (main contributor and FA nominator).

While a comprehensive article, several large sections lack inline citations (1.c), and sections of the prose, particularly the 'Early life' section, are quite poor. Image text does not conform to the manual of style, and there are two cleanup tags, including one requesting a citation (almost a month old). Parrot of Doom (talk) 10:22, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Done; thanks. Images need alt text as per WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 18:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. It needs a prose clean up, as sections tend to be made up of many short paragraphs, making for a choppy read.

Dead links:

Keep Still worthy and one of the better Engineering-related articles which is under-represented. Non-conformance to a manual of style, and a couple of tags, do not automatically make a bad article! --PopUpPirate (talk) 23:24, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't ever suggest that were so - its still a 'good' article, but I doubt it would, in its present state, even pass WP:GAN. Parrot of Doom (talk) 23:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also note that under-representation and "worth[iness]" are not considered in whether an article meets FA criteria. Dabomb87 (talk) 18:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images File:Saltashrab.jpg: missing permission. File:Great Western.jpg is a copyright violation: Mark Myers (born 1945) is still living. This is a modern imagining of an historic event, not an historic picture painted at the time. File:Great-Eastern-At-Sea-.jpg and File:Brunel-Launch-Leviathon.jpg: missing permissions. DrKiernan (talk) 10:17, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

File:Great-Eastern-At-Sea-.jpg has been commented out and File:Brunel-Launch-Leviathon.jpg appears to have been upladed by the copyright holder with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 license. Jezhotwells (talk) 13:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary[edit]

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, MOS, prose, alt text, copyright. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Poor prose: single line paragraphs, text doesn't flow, formatted almost as a set of bullet points. Images missing permission. Dead links. DrKiernan (talk) 15:24, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but I'm still not happy with it. There are problems with comprehensiveness and focus. For example, the "Early life" section could be expanded with details of his schooling in Britain and his work for a French clockmaker, and there are single-line paragraphs which are really nothing more than adverts for the Swindon and Didcot railway museums. The lead goes into unnecessary detail over trivia, e.g. "Some 143 years later..." when it should explain his lasting legacy not some unreliable television poll that was hijacked by Brunel University undergraduates. DrKiernan (talk) 11:18, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Revisited. Still delist. DrKiernan (talk) 09:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC) 10:35, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist as per DrKiernan. The dead-link image is particularly grating. Also, all the images still lack alt text (see the "alt text" entry in the toolbox at the upper right of this review page). Striking my "delist" for now, as article is improving. Eubulides (talk) 06:02, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, agree with DrKiernan (talk · contribs) and Eubulides (talk · contribs), as well as FA criteria concerns highlighted by YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 11:18, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, only just came across this discussion. Will work on this over the next week. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yay, I was really hoping someone would step up to the plate to work on this. I can't help much with the lack of citations, but will work on prose, MOS, etc. Maralia (talk) 02:46, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone would like to cast their eyes over the references now (many have been changed, more added, that would be good. Maralia is still copy-editing, but feedback on the references would be useful. Jezhotwells (talk) 00:18, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for working on that. Could you also take a look at the alt text, as it's still absent? Please click on the "alt text" button in the toolbox at the upper right of this review page. Eubulides (talk) 15:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have added alt text for all images, the tool does not show it, but a right click on the image and a click on properties does show it. I don't know how to add alt text to the icon for the wikisource in the ELs. Jezhotwells (talk) 12:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Good job on the alt text. The tool is sometimes delayed; I have a bug report in about that. I fixed the template generating the Wikisource image. Eubulides (talk) 19:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just wanted to leave a note mentioning that I'm still working on this. It's in much better shape already (thanks Jezhotwells!). I should be able to get back to it within a few days. Maralia (talk) 04:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's going to need quite a bit of MoS cleanup ... on a quick flyover, I saw a lot of WP:OVERLINKing and WP:ACCESS issues. As it gets further along, I'll have another look, but Maralia is likely to address these issues. For now, the article is not in keep territory. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It would be helpful, to me at least, to point out where overlinking is a problem. I have removed some duplicate wikilinks and one or two taht seemed redundant. I can see any other instances or over-linking. I would also apprecaite guidance on what access issues the artcile has. Jezhotwells (talk) 09:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I added two sample edits, faster than typing it all out, hopefully you can take it from there, and review WP:ACCESS and WP:OVERLINKing. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are some dabs that need fixing.[2] And some more citations are needed, including one for a quote. —Mattisse (Talk) 16:24, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dablinks fixed and several fact tags resolved (3 as yet unresolved). Working offline on a rewrite of some sections. Will update status next week. Maralia (talk) 04:06, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The prose needs work; it's saveable, but is someone going to organise it? I made a few tweaks at the top. Overlinking ("British"? "engineer"? bad piping of TA cable. Chain-links: "Portsmouth, Hampshire"—surely the second is at the opening of the first, so why link both? See WP:LINKING on adjacency. And please not "England, UK". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs)
  • Still plugging away determinedly at this. Added the French clockmaker bit that DrKiernan has been asking for. Working like mad to improve the quality of the sourcing. I still have significant work to do in the 'text doesn't flow/single sentence paragraphs' arena. Will update here again when I feel it can withstand further scrutiny. Maralia (talk) 05:54, 10 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am still working on this, but the FAR is admittedly heading into its fourth month. I would love to see it kept (that is after all why I've been working on it), but I honestly don't feel that it's there yet. I really don't want my personal opinion to count here, though, because if the decision is to delist, I will probably bring it back to FAC after additional work. I am going to post at WT:FAR asking for more input here. Maralia (talk) 04:05, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist
    1. 2c Final fullstop in references inconsistent. Corporate authors inconsistently cited (fn 12 versus bibliography X and Y versus X; Y style). fn18 uses a title, titles are not used in cites. As a History of Science all works cited should be listed in the bibliography. Journal citation fn39 out of style (no pp). Dates in cites are inconsistent Month Year versus YYYY-MM-DD.
    2. 1c Buchanan 2006's publisher seems dodgy. I can't find Gillings 2006's publisher to be academic. Wilson 1994 is dodgy since they don't do academic history and do professional not academic engineering. Beckett2006 is straight dodgy, its a picture book publisher (but is not relied upon). Brunel 1870 is self of course (but not relied upon). There is far too much OR leading to PRIMARY, fn57 for example makes a judgement from archival documents that only a contemporary nursing journal should be making. There are large gaps in the narrative between authorative High Quality RS focused on the life story: fns 4-11, 7-30, 32-38, 56-66, 68-78. The verification filler is made up of newspaper articles, websites, commemorations, archival documents, and single use papers which I have not checked for publisher provenance because they're not in a History grade bibliography.
    3. 1c Scholarship since 2006 is missing on important topics to History of Science, for example, DP Miller "Principle, practice and persona in Isambard Kingdom Brunel's patent abolitionism" The British Journal for the History of Science, 2007 - Cambridge Univ Press. (Additionally, some Japanese Railway studies and a Geology Today paper appear possibly relevant). Fifelfoo (talk) 01:07, 3 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • This example seems to be narrow for a broad, overview topic; can you explain why it's important, or do you have other examples of missing sources? Specifically, what information is needed in this article that is not covered? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:56, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per Fifelfoo, dodgy sources, poor quality writing. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 05:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please provide samples of poor quality writing, or your declaration might be considered invalid by the closing delegate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:52, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The many one-sentence paragraphs, for one. The first three headers each have a one-sentence paragraph that could be better put elsewhere. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 17:15, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm inclined towards delisting only because Maralia hasn't yet been able to get to this (last edit Oct 17). I do want to point out, though, that minor issues like citation formatting or alt-text are not strong reasons for delisting a FAR. If they were, we would have to delist most of our FAs, because the alt-text requirement was only recently added. I have never seen an FA delisted over citation formatting; the quality of the scholarship is a different matter, and in this case, a specific example of missing scholarship was provided. However, I am unconvinced that the sample given by Fifelfoo is appropriate for a broad overview article; it seems to be too narrowly focused. In summary, I'd like to see more care in delist declarations here, but I'm leaning to delist only because Maralia hasn't yet gotten to this article. Jezhotwells doesn't seem to be actively working on the article either. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My questiones on Maralia's talk were mainly about the progress of work, not the state of the article YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 06:19, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There haven't been any articles delisted when the only things remaining were ALT text or bits of formatting. Eubulides makes the same reminder on each page but there is no indication that it was the deciding factor. I don't think it ever has been YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 06:20, 9 November 2009 (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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