Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Guqin/archive1

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[edit] Guqin

  • Support One of the best, most informative, and best-researched articles I've seen at Wikipedia. Badagnani 18:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong Support Important article concerning a little know and little understood important musical instrument of China. Comprehensive introduction to the instrument. Has had unofficial approval and backing from several well and less known qin players in the UK and the USA. --CharlieHuang 00:13, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Object, as follows:
  • The lead section should be longer—two or three paragraphs is appropriate for an aritcle of this length.
  • The section headings should be English-only (I assume that the Chinese in them is merely a translation?)
  • The "Basic overview" section is very short; it should either be extended considerably or merged into the lead.
  • Much of the article consists of lists. This is not particularly bad in itself; but the list items should be more appropriately wikified. I suspect that many of the schools and sources, for instance, would be good topics for articles of their own.
  • Finally, some inline citations should be added.
Most of these are purely technical issues that should be fairly simple to resolve. —Kirill Lokshin 00:43, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment Much of the lists, with exception to the Important Qinpu (separate article in prep) and the Ancient Sources in the article, are rather small lists that are aren't likely to be expanded (though if they are in the future, separate article will be crated on each individual basis). I find the short lists easier to navigate and read than mixed in together with other words. The Important Qinpu section I suppose could be removed (or moved to) since there is already an article on it. --CharlieHuang 11:57, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Much of the lists issue has been now addressed by creation of separate articles, leaving only two short lists, which I hope is acceptable. --CharlieHuang 12:41, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The lists are fine now. Unfortunately, since you removed the lists, you now have several sections that consist only of a few sentences and a {{main}} link. These need to be either expanded or merged into the surrounding text. —Kirill Lokshin 18:17, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm, you solve a problem and another one crops up. I'll try and expand or merge them. --CharlieHuang 23:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
I've reduced it further by merging most of the small ones together. I have to use lesser bold headings to seperate the sections to distingush their difference and to avoid a muddle. --CharlieHuang 00:25, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Great! Support from me, then. —Kirill Lokshin 02:40, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Lead section should be much longer as Kirill mentioned above, and the lists need to be converted into prose. — Wackymacs 08:17, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
  • All that has been sorted. --CharlieHuang 17:44, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment For me and I suspect many other users, the Chinese characters appear as question marks. This may be an issue for a FA but I dont know how you could act on this short of turning the important text into graphics. --Anon
  • Removing the Chinese characters will sort of diminish the article's sake of completeness since a lot of terms are Chinese ones. One will have to have them in so that for research purposes, one knows the corresponding character(s) and can look and refer to them. Besides, having it there even though some cannot see them is better than not having them there denying those of which they maybe of use to of them. Though maybe some are disposable. --CharlieHuang 23:53, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment All I see are boxes where the Chinese characters should be. I agree it could be a problem if this happens to the average user. Smerk 12:29, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I did have problems viewing the characters when I used a rather historically-challenged computer at an office which forbids download and upgrading (making certain documents impossible to view). However, I believe that those who seek knowledge must be willing to put an effort into retriving it. People who have Windows XP can in fact view Chinese characters it if they install the necessary IME (Input method editor) programme (which is already in the software). Older users must download the IME software from the internet and then install it (a quick Google does the trick), and I did think that you can download the language viewing tools in the Windows Update site. And TBH, I have Windows ME and had to install it from download, yet most of the characters in the insert box at the bottom of the edit page sandbox appear as squares to me (but I can see them if I input them into the sandbox). And besides, if you're going to view an article that is essentially about something Chinese, you're gonna expect it to have a few, if not a lot Chinese characters in it. --CharlieHuang 15:48, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. --Fire Star 18:21, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support as long as a bilingual poster confirms that the Chinese characters are saying what they claim to say! We don't want to appear on the "and finally..." section of the news now do we? --HasBeen 09:02, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Anyone confirm that my Chinese (and the Chinese written on my referenced sites) are really Chinese? --CharlieHuang 12:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Have just been to music library and can confirm that my suspicions were unfounded. Support, and please do submit for the front page. --HasBeen 09:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Object; I'm not impressed with only using embedded external links as inline citations, especially since none of them are listed as references anyway. Inline citations should point to all the sources used, not just websites. For an article like this, footnotes would be great. --Spangineeres (háblame) 16:29, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • OK, I've abandoned most of the external links, re-furbished and added to the references, footnoted the lot, etc. Hope that is acceptable. --CharlieHuang 20:28, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support Outstanding article! --Naha|(talk) 17:58, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Support It looks great! - Cuivienen 23:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment That's pretty cool. Only odd thing is the Charlie Huang photo, well, the caption, really... If the subject is identified, shouldn't there be some clarification as to who it is and why? --Tsavage 03:43, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It's actually me coz, (1) I am a qin player, (2) I am hardly gonna ask my peers for permission to post their photos pn this article without some formal process which may lead to, (3) some unecessary copyrighting issues that are avoided if the photo is of me, and (4) the picture is to illustrate the Playing context section of a typical strumming of the instrument. But I will put a more descriptive caption if it helps. --CharlieHuang 12:16, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the reply. (And, FWIW, I enjoyed the article!) Here, I'm paying attention to detail, because it is...FAC. What I'm wondering about is (and of course, no disrepect to your qin talents!) whether it seems appropriate to name people in a photo if they are simply illustrating an act... If there's no existing guideline for this, it would seem to make sense that, if someone is named, the context should be clear, for example, whether it is a notable person in the field, or an "amateur" or "professional" or whatever... Otherwise, without explanation, it can be...confusing. --Tsavage 16:33, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I see your point. Anyways, it has achieved featured article status now! Thanks to everyone who contributed and supported this article! --CharlieHuang 00:33, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
That was a really fine edit to the caption! ;) I'm happy you're pleased with the FA. --Tsavage 00:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)