Wikipedia:Peer review/Pipe organ/archive1

Pipe organ

A review please to assess further changes before FA nomination. –MDCollins (talk) 16:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Walton_monarchist89's review

A few points:

Currently, key terms throughout the article are bolded - unbold them, at least in the lead section. According to the Manual of Style, the only words in the lead section that should be bolded are the article title and its synonyms. Having bold text throughout the article is confusing for the reader, and isn't consistent with other Wikipedia articles.
I'd advise moving some of the excessive detail from the lead section to other parts of the article. For instance, I don't think that this bit needs to be in the lead section: "Solo organ music is usually played before and after the service. These pieces are generally called voluntaries." Possibly move all this detail to a separate heading on "Common uses of pipe organs" or something of that nature.
On the plus side, the prose quality is good, and there's plenty of sourcing. The areas for improvement are fairly minor, so overall this is a very good article. Walton ^{Need some help?} 19:27, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

N.B. I've unbolded the article, moved some of the lead out, and I'm giving full citations for the weblinks. Looks like FA is not far off now. Thanks. –MDCollins (talk) 20:24, 6 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Jayron32's Review

The lead has organization issues. In clipping the lead as described above, you may have cut TOO much, and introduced some organization issues. For example, the second paragraph isn't coherent at all. It jumps from history to structure to music. Then in the third paragraph, we jump back to structure again. Think of the lead as an article in minature. For each substantial section in the body of the article, consider a paragraph in the lead that generally summarizes (hits the high points or gives a general idea of the content of) each section, in the same order as the article and also of the same proprotional size as is given in the article.
Construction section is not bad, but needs tightening up in places, for example:
1. allowing the pipes to speak Really? What wisdom do they expound? Metaphor is great in other venues, but an encyclopedia article should stick to straight speech. It needn't be boring, but it should be academic...
2. Before the advent of electricity, this is how all organs were provided with wind awkward sentance. Maybe include this nugget of info in a prior sentance rather than hanging it out like that. Even if you keep the sentance, it needs a rewrite...
3. Playing the organ in those days required at least one person to operate the bellows Those days? ugh...
4. Before the advent of electric blowers it is thought that some organs were fitted with motors (often water turbines) which manipulated the bellows through the use of a crankshaft commas maybe? This sentance is hard to parse, and needs something...
5. may feature a wind pressure of only 1.5 inches, while an orchestral organ from the early twentieth century may have wind pressures as high as 25 inches in some divisions. Non-standard pressure designations. Either use the correct unit (inches of mercury) or use more standard units using torr, bars, kilopascals, or something like that.
6. There may be more copyediting needed, but this is a start...
Referencing has big issues.
1. You probably need a separate "references" and "notes" section. See WP:CITE or WP:FN for more info on this.
2. Inline referencing, either using parenthetical notes or footnotes, may be appropriate if each section contains information from a wide range of sources. You should indicate which specific source provides each fact; if a web source use a link to the specific page, or if a book a cite to a specific page or pages as appropriate.
3. Where a whole section may be referenced to a single source, consider indicating such in the reference section, such as:
  1. Construction: Doe, John (2002). Pipe organs and You, Some University Press, Anytown USA, ISBN: 987656451
  2. History: Smith, Jane (1999). The History of the Pipe Organ, Dick Jones Publishing, London, ISBN:1233464578
4. Superlative claims should ALWAYS have direct inline citations, even if you have cited the entire section to a single source, as I describe above. For example The most famous composer of organ music was Johann Sebastian Bach, is challengable, since it expresses a superlative claim, and an opinion at that, and thus needs a specific reference (to a specific webpage or page in a book) where the claim is made.

That's a start. Good luck on improving this. It is a pretty good article right now, but needs some work to get to FA status...--Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment on the use of 'speak' - this is the term generally used when discussing pipes, and indeed SOED says 'speak' may apply to any musical instrument. But perhaps it will be unfamiliar to the general reader and 'sound' might be better? Barnabypage 13:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Likewise, a quick comment on the use of pressure units: wind pressures in the organ are always given in inches of water... not sure what this works out to, but it's not mmHg, kPa, bars, or torr. —Cor anglais 16 13:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorted the wind pressure - now in first paragraph of wind system. copy edit please! Also created inch of water (approx 250 pa). –MDCollins (talk) 14:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recent changes look good. The lead is MUCH improved. It summarizes the article, and has a coherant organization. The inches of water thing now makes sense as well. Referencing still needs work, but I expect that will take longer anyways. Good job on the improvements done so far though!--Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Responding to a comment on my talk page. The referencing looks VERY good now. I think the style of referencing now largely mimics those I often see on most Featured Articles. Compare this article to Cricket World Cup, a current FA article which is fairly short and uses a referencing style very similar to this one. With regard to the appendix sections at the end; they look great. I would EXPECT the largest section to be footnotes. I would probably list the appendix sections in this order: See also—References—Notes—Bibliography—External links. For more information, see: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)#Standard appendices and Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Standard appendices and descriptions. Also, several sections are as yet without any reference, I am sure you are working on this... Good luck, and drop me a line if you need any more help! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 16:55, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Automated Review

Please see automated peer review suggestions here. Thanks, APR _t 22:09, 8 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]