Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Adolfo Farsari

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

The article was promoted 06:16, 31 January 2007.

[edit] Adolfo Farsari

An informative, very readable, and excellently illustrated survey of a nineteenth-century photographer that I believe meets all the FAC criteria with panache.

The huge majority (ninety-eight percent?) of the work on this article was done, and I think all the content was inserted, by a single editor, and I'm not that editor. However, I did goad him along to some extent; I'm not unrelated to the editing process.

(The article was nominated for FA on 9 February 06. Here is the debate; in my opinion, some objections were valid at the time but are valid no longer, at least one was not valid even then. The latest draft of the article before it was first nominated is here; the latest before its failure was announced is here.)

-- Hoary 07:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Reference for the dates of birth and death? Proto::► 09:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

The paragraphs dealing with his origins and his death cite "Dobson, 27". Pinkville 13:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• SUPPORT OBJECT. Well referenced, however, the references need to use one format or another. Can't use Harvard referencing in a "footnotes" format. Either put the references in the body to comply with the requirements of Harvard Referencing, or make the footnotes full citations, per WP:CITE and something like MLA or Chicago. Given wikipedia's inline citations rules, that would eliminate harvard referencing. I don't even know why we still let people use Harvard Referencing, academia largely walked away from it 20 years ago because of its deficiencies and aesthetics. Right now, you're using <ref> tags for harvard referencing, and that's just wrong given how HR is meant to work. Example on how it has to be done, from "Early Years" section:
  • • He married an American, but the marriage failed and in 1873 he left his wife and two children and moved to Japan.(Bennett, 44–45; Dobson, 27.) or
    • He married an American, but the marriage failed and in 1873 he left his wife and two children and moved to Japan.<ref>Bennett, Terry. Early Japanese Images. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1996, 44-45. ISBN 0-8048-2033-3 (paper), ISBN 0-8048-2029-5 (hard).</ref><ref>Dobson, Sebastian. "Yokohama Shashin". In Art and Artifice. 27</ref>

As you can guess, I'd prefer the second style, but I can't hold that against you for using HR. Now, to pre-empt one response, MLA and Chicago formats require a full citation before you can start using ibid. and op. cit. For the section entitled Selected photographs and other works, I'd much rather see a gallery (implying uploading them to wikipedia, as they all seem to be public domain because of age) within this section of the article than a list of external jumps. 6 months from now, it would look bad if they were all dead links. Also, the lead needs to be expanded to summaries each section just a little bit more, per WP:LEAD. The article is well-written on the other hand, and I'll gladly support this article once the above are remedied. —ExplorerCDT 02:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I've seen this format used quite often for Featured Articles that rely heavily on books. It's cumbersome to cite the full book each time it's used. Since the full citations are given in the References, I think it's perfectly fine to just list last name, page # in the notes. Gzkn 03:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• NO, it's not. Right now they're using a hybrid of different citation methods and must choose one or the other, because they're using one method quite heavily, but incorrectly (see WP:CITE n.b. the section on Harvard Referencing) Also considering that several older FAs don't meet today's criteria (and as such deserve to be subjected to FA review), comparisons to other FAs are not often valid. Your comment doesn't take into account WP:CITE's policy, and will mislead the article nominator. They'll hit themselves later if it's my objection that fails this candidacy, only because they listened to you instead of doing the revisions demanded.—ExplorerCDT 04:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, yes, it is. See Wikipedia:Footnotes#Style recommendations: "Avoid using Ibid in footnotes. Other editors who add new references to the article may not take the time to correct Ibid references broken by their addition. Furthermore, not all readers are familiar with the meaning of the term. If a reference is reused in more than one footnote, it is preferable to use the format "Smith, 182" rather than "Ibid, 182", so as to avoid these problems." (Emphasis added.) A fuller citation is required the first time a particular work is cited, though, and that hasn't been done in this article at present. Shimeru 05:06, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• I didn't mean ibid in that context. I should have marked my words more carefully. I was equating their last name, page number style with ibid. and that was just wrong of me. But that doesn't negate my above comments regarding citations, and thank you for agreeing with me on that point. —ExplorerCDT 05:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't fully understand the objection here. After markup stripping: the references need to use one format or another. Can't use Harvard referencing in a "footnotes" format. Either put the references in the body to comply with the requirements of Harvard Referencing, or make the footnotes full citations, per WP:CITE and something like MLA or Chicago. I have in front of me the 13th edition (1982) of The Chicago Manual of Style. Chapter 17 is devoted to "note forms", i.e. the forms that foot/endnotes should take. Section 17.2 (p.486) is within this context (it's most certainly about the use of notes), and it starts: A source should be given a full reference the first time it is cited in a book or article, unless it appears in an alphabetical bibliography at the end of the work (see 15.82). Section 15.82, in turn, is very simple; though taking up slightly more than two pages (pp.423–5), the great majority of it is taken up by a lengthy example of each of two layouts of alphabetically ordered bibliographies; it says The bibliography arranged in a single alphabetical list is the most common and usually the best form for a work with, or without, notes to the text (p.423). Thus although "Chicago" certainly does allow for a system of full bibliographical (etc.) details in a note the first time the given source is referenced, it (or anyway its rather old 13th edition) asks for an alphabetically ordered list for this, and it does not require full details in the footnotes if they are in an alphabetically ordered list. ¶ What we have in this article is the alphabetical list but not the first full citation in the footnote, a system that appealed to the creator of the article, appealed to me as editor, avoids a lot of clutter, seems to do little or nothing to make the sources harder to identify, and was fully approved of by "Chicago" in 1982, even if it's not approved of by the latest (2003) "Chicago". (I really don't know about the 2003 edition. I'm not buying a copy because I see nothing wrong with the old copy that I already possess, because the new one includes a stupid new section, because it's rather expensive, and, well, because every day is Buy Nothing Day.) ¶ I now turn from Chicago to what WP says. WP:FOOT tells us: Consider maintaining a separate bibliography/references section, then just the page number and book name can be given in each note, following Wikipedia:Citing sources (tsk tsk, comma splice). That seems to allow for the sourcing system used in this article, though admittedly it's not entirely clear. As for WP:SOURCE, [cough], no offense intended to the good people who have no doubt labored over it, but it strikes me as an awful mess. A footnote dump (via <references />) gives us:

footnote examples

1. Miller, E: "The Sun.", page 23. Academic Press, 2005

2. Smith, R: "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 46(78):46

3. example footnote abc

4. example footnote xyz

The very first of these strikes me as grotesque. (Something like

1. E. Miller, The Sun (New York: Academic Press, 2005), 23.

would be okay; let's put aside quibbles about whether the page number should be preceded by "p." and suchlike stylemanualcruft.) I'm willing to follow the main thrust of what this "guideline" says, but the details are so shoddy that I have difficulty summoning the enthusiasm needed to follow its every minor pronouncement. Still, I'm open to persuasion. -- Hoary 07:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

When in doubt, go the extra mile. I think the policy is clear. But if you want to doubt, so be it. —ExplorerCDT 07:43, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll be happy to go the extra mile, or two, or three, if I thought that doing so would either add to the article or result in the article adhering to a coherent guideline. But I don't see how fleshing out notes in this way would add to the article (other than in simple bulk), and WP:FOOT appears to approve of and Chicago (13th ed.) definitely does approve of the system now used. Again, I'm open to reasoning -- and the reason can be pretty weak. Yes, given even a weak reason, I'll certainly make the changes, and with good grace. -- Hoary 07:59, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

My reasoning: What if someone comes by and divorces the reference section from the article and no one notices it for several weeks, months, years? Heck, the false accusation that John Seigenthaler, Sr. was involved in the JFK and RFK assassinations was around for several months before someone noticed it and complained. —ExplorerCDT 08:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

You wanted biblio stuff in the notes, you got it! -- Hoary 09:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

As per above, this article has my support. Though, I'd still like to see the "Selected photographs" section in the form of a Gallery, I won't hold it against ya. —ExplorerCDT 09:14, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Me too, but unfortunately all six images are hosted elsewhere. -- Hoary 09:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

They are public domain by now> Open page with picture. Right click. Save as. Open wikipedia. Log in. Click upload file, etc. Hint, hint... —ExplorerCDT 10:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

The images whose rephotographs (or perhaps scans) we're looking at are indeed in the public domain. Offhand I'm not at all sure about those rephotographs (scans). I suspect that a scan or recent rephotograph of a public-domain image is itself copyright; I had a quick look for this issue in vaguely relevant-looking WP pages but didn't turn up anything. (I suggest that we continue this discussion on Talk:Adolfo Farsari in order not to clutter up this FAC page.) -- Hoary 10:33, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Those photograph scans are covered under {{PD-art}} and the relevant case law attached to that tag. —ExplorerCDT 22:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do with the lead a bit later today. I'll also look constructing an image gallery, if indeed the consensus is to go ahead with that idea. Pinkville 18:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support Aside from the potential reference-format issue (which is a minor detail), this looks to me like a well-written and comprehensive article. Shimeru 08:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support Quite a remarkable article on a very little known subject. PHG 11:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I've created a gallery using the photographs and other items formerly listed in the "selected photographs" section. I'll deal with expanding the lead tomorrow. Pinkville 04:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comments I don't know enough on the subject to have a clear opinion about the nomination. I did however thoroughly enjoy reading the article and found it to be of high quality. I did a bit of copyediting and some more is probably needed to reach brilliant prose. For instance, you might want to rephrase As a further example of the studio's high reputation, by the 1890s it had exclusive rights to photograph the Imperial Gardens in Tokyo which sounds clumsy to me. I also think that it would be suitable to have at least a few notes (in the last section) on whether or not Farsari's work is still being exhibited. Have there been fairly recent Farsari exhibits? If so, where? If not, why? If not, have there ever been? Pascal.Tesson 03:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I'll have a look again at that studio's high reputation sentence. And I'll see about mentioning something about recent exhibitions - the source I mainly used is actually an exhibition catalogue from 2004. Pinkville 04:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I hope I've resolved these two issues now. Pinkville 04:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Thanks. As I said, I know too little about photography or Japan for that matter so I don't think I can be a good judge of the article's overall value. Best of luck Pinkville. Pascal.Tesson 04:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, improvements, and good wishes. Pinkville 05:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I've expanded the intro somewhat to more comprehensively summarise the sections of the article. Pinkville 04:11, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support. Well written, interesting, meets criteria. Giano 13:12, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe all of the questions/issues raised here (and in the previous bid for FA status) have been answered. Any further comments, requests, etc.? Pinkville 02:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support Just one comment. While using a gallery is ok per WP:MoS, I've seen a few instances in the past where use of gallery wes rather discouraged. However, since some experienced wikipedians have already reviewed the article and supported it, I believe this is not a major issue. Nice article. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support - great article. I think the gallery is entirely appropriate for an article on a photographer. Johntex\^talk 15:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The image gallery wraps off my screen - please resize. The first footnote is incomplete - please add biblio info including publisher and last access date. Also, the end of the third paragraph in the section "Farsari and Yokohama shashin" has uncited commentary which appears as opinion or original research. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Not sure how to help you with the gallery size issue - it's fine in the three browsers I use on two computers and though I've looked through the relevant pages in Wikipedia on Gallery mark-up I haven't found out how to resize. Maybe someone who understands this technical issue better than I can help...? The first footnote has been expanded to include access date - it is a webpage, so there isn't any further publication data to add. The missing citation (accidentally left off at some point in the editing) has been added. Pinkville 17:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone help with the gallery resizing request from SandyGeorgia? Thanks. Pinkville 16:03, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.