Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Kraków/archive1

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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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 18:01, 19 June 2007.

[edit] Kraków

Previous FAC (January 2004)

Self-nomination. The article has been greatly improved in recent time. Several new sections have been added with hierarchical headings, inspired by similar articles already featured. The improvements include an extensive list of over 37 new references and footnotes, and a number of supplementary articles written and linked to it recently. --Poeticbent talk 02:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. (Link to previous FAC is broken, so I wasn't able to read that.) Comments:

  • On the plus side the pictures are very nice (although personally I'd suggest having fewer pictures with more informative captions). The prose is generally good, with a number of minor issues that could be fixed with a light copyedit; if this was the only problem I'd do it myself and support, but... Hmm, after making a go at copyediting the lead myself, I think the article has deeper prose issues than I originally thought (grammar/flow/word choice). After correcting the below objections, which will take some time, I'd suggest asking for a deeper copyedit (and I'd be willing to do so since I already offered to above).
  • Unfortunately there's a lack of quality references. The existing refs appear to be almost exclusively from web sites, and most of those from online travel guides, personal webpages, and other non-scholarly sources. (Plus your footnotes do not list information like publisher, author, and so on, per WP:CITE.) Personal webpages should be avoided completely. Stuff like travel guides and capsule summaries on university/conference homepages are acceptable for some purposes, but there are many scholarly print sources on the topic of Polish history that you should be taking advantage of. At a minimum the history section should be cited primarily from published books and articles.
  • The next biggest issue is layout. The lead is too short (see WP:LEAD). The TOC is too long, due to the presence of many too-small and even empty sections. Sports, for example, is just a short list, it has no prose. The same with "Administrative districts" — obviously this section should contain a list, but you should also explain exactly what an "administrative district" is in regards to this city.
  • Somehow the pictures have bunched up many of the section "edit" links in one place. Not sure how to fix that.
  • For an example of a very good featured article about a city, please see Jerusalem. Look at how and to what it's referenced and how it's laid out.

- Merzbow 03:56, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Please look again at the link to Previous FAC. The article was originally submitted in January 2004, long before the current system of nominations was established. The article Krakow was listed lower down in section History. The link is not broken. Meanwhile, thanks for all the constructive comments. I will look again at the list of refs with your suggestions in mind including the Table of Contents, the subsections, the examples, etc. --Poeticbent talk 04:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks... I see it now... wow how process has changed since then... - Merzbow 04:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comments (there'll be a few) I'm just starting to trawl through this now.. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 21:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Etymology of name section is stubby - I'd enlarge it with some of the information from the Krakus page.
paragraphs in History section are stubby and should be combined somehow.
um..ghettoised? - possibly could be rephrased. I've never heardthe word and comes across sounding funny.
Districts section is listy, could the districts be expanded a bit and maybe put in paragraphs?
The Old Town district of Kraków (Stare Miasto) has rich historic architecture.. -sounds odd. try embellishing - alot of rich historic, is notable for its rich historic.. or something.
On top of that, there are a number of privately-owned minibus companies... - "Also" is better and less informal. This makes the sentence a bit short. Any more info?
Kraków by night subsection - I'd remove this as it adds nothing to the article.
I'm not a fan of See also sections, these should all be worked into the text somewhere.

Overall the prose is better than many I've seen but there are a few things to be done. Doable but needs a bit of work. I agree about the reference needing some authoritative print book. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 21:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. Much appreciated. All your comments will be addressed with utmost care. Section References is on my next “to do” list. I just finished trimming some fat from TOC and I also looked at other GA articles on metropolitan cities and got inspiration there. Section “See also” (even if not your preference) is featured in Jerusalem as mentioned by Merzbow and most other GA atricles, however, “Krakow by night” has to go, as per your comment. Cheers, Poeticbent talk 01:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I would never oppose because an article had a "See Also" section (unless it was grievously misused), but in general I find them to be somewhat pointless. - Merzbow 03:35, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Will take care of that too. Thanks. --Poeticbent talk 15:35, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Object. I plan to work on this article myself and I want to comment Poetic of bringing this from a poor B to what is close to GA/A class now - but this still needs more work before it is FA. First: lack of references for some statements. Second: government section needs expansion and economics is missing completly. Minor nitpicks: all administrative districts need to be stubbed at the very least, some sections could use pictures, 'Kraków by night' and 'Main sights' sounds too close like from a travel guide - I'd consider moving them to culture section under 'tourism' heading or something similar. All things considered, it's a good work in progress, greatly improved by Poetic in the past weeks, but still not FA-ready (to be clear: not up to current FA-standards, it's already better then some of our older city FAs that missed FARC...).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:31, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. It’s all very important to me. I wonder how I could have missed the Economy section, but I guess, with all those new sections added in recent time it was easy do. Will take care of that shortly. Cas Liber suggested that the “Kraków by night” section be removed altogether. Wouldn’t you agree? There’s no separate “Tourism” subsection in Jerusalem nor in San Francisco, California, I just looked at. Too much like a travel guide I suppose. --Poeticbent talk 15:35, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed that it is a common weakness in city FACs (the whole travel-guide look that is). I'd also go through all the 'sights/tourism' stuff very carefully. Good luck. I'll drop by in a few days.cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 21:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Being an inclusionist, I prefer to save info rather then to remove it. I am sure we can figure out a section to merge it to or a subarticle to move it too. Good job adding economics, as long as its fresh make sure to add a ref for each para.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  06:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose
  1. Gross disparity in size among sections. After a huge history, a rather short "Geography and climate". Consider summarizing History.
  2. Please remove subsections (Public transit, rail etc) from "transport",; at present the subsections are short in size. Information such as "Airport facilities include bar, currency exchange and car rentals (Avis, Budget, Europcar, Sixt and Hertz). Duty-free shops are in the departure hall" are rather touristy.
  3. One sentence subsections like "Local" under "Government". Remove such subsections.
  4. the section "Government" effectively does not have any information. Please tell how the city is governed, such as municipality board, wards, other public service utilities (sewage, electricity etc).
  5. Demographics—anything on religion, literacy, sex ratio etc?
  6. Education—Just a list of universities in education is not comprehensive.
  7. Culture—description of individual parks in a city article is over-emphasis.
  8. the section "Symbols" is not at all needed.

I have not read the article thoroughly. Overall, it seems not comprehensive, and without balance among sections. There are several choppy one or two sentence paragraphs. So, in gist, the article does not meed FA criteria 1(a) and 1(b). Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for a thorough critique. Some of the issues you brought up have already been dealt with, others will be dealt with progressively. The section History was already summarized once and it will be looked at again. New paragraphs in Government are on my next to do list. I intend to address all your comments eventually. Interestingly enough I put the sex ratio into Demographics already once, before it was removed. I will make sure to bring it back. I’m in the process of dealing with the red links in Universities by writing articles to be used for a new and more comprehensive section in the near future. Regards. --Poeticbent talk 03:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The article seems to be gathering more and more statistical minutiae (details of local taxes, men/women ratio, this sort of things). Anybody who really wants to know these facts will reach for original sources, not for W's digest. Prune severely before applying for the FA status.
Jotel 06:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Oppose

Whether the use of Kraków should be used on English Wikipedia instead of Cracow, is a matter that is unresolved (see talk WP:NCGN). Dr. Dan 14:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) states: "The following methods may be helpful in establishing a widely accepted name.
1. Consult English-language encyclopedias (we recommend Encyclopedia Britannica, Columbia Encyclopedia, Encarta...)"
Advanced Search Results:
  • Encyclopedia Britannica: Kraków [1] city and capital of Malopolskie województwo (province), southern Poland, lying on both sides of the upper Vistula River.
  • Encyclopedia Britannica: Cracow, Republic of... [2] tiny state that, for the 31 years of its existence (1815–46), was the only remaining independent portion of Poland. Established by the Congress of Vienna ...
  • Columbia Encyclopedia: Kraków [3] (kră`kou, Pol. krä`kf), Ger. Krakau, city (1994 est. pop. 751,500), capital of Małopolskie prov., S Poland, on the Vistula. A river port and industrial center ...
  • Columbia Encyclopedia: Cracow [4] redirects to Kraków.
  • Encarta: Kraków [5] (German Krakau), city in southern Poland, capital of Małopolskie Province, on the Wisła (Vistula) River.
  • Encarta: Cracow [6] redirects to Kraków.
2. "Consult Google Scholar and Google Books hits (count only articles and books, not number of times the word is used in them)"
Advanced Search Results:
  • Google Scholar: Kraków (all in title) [7] Results about 17,100 for allintitle: Kraków.
  • Google Scholar: Cracow (all in title) [8] Results about 1,720 for allintitle: Cracow.
  • Google Books: books with the title Kraków [9] Books 821 on intitle:Kraków.
  • Google Books: books with the title Cracow [10] Books 94 on intitle:Cracow.
3. "Consult other standard histories and scientific studies of the area in question. (We recommend the Cambridge Histories; the Library of Congress country studies, and the Oxford dictionaries relevant to the period and country involved). "
Search Results:
  • All Library of Congress Pages: Cracow [12] retrieved 44 results.
4. "Consult major news sources, either individually, or by using Lexis-Nexis, if accessible. If they agree in using a given name, it is widely accepted."
Search LexisNexis:
  • Entire Site: Kraków - automatically respelled to Krakow [13] Search Results (7)
  • Entire Site: Cracow [14] Search Results (2)
--Poeticbent talk 18:01, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for all the trouble you went through to tell us all why and how Cracow was changed into Polish (with a diacritic) in the English language at English Wikipedia. Would you be so kind as to inform us on an approximate date that this metamorphosis occured. When did the change take place. This would help to alleviate my objection. Would 1975 be about right, or was it later? Thanks again. Dr. Dan 21:12, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
Your estimation has a very good ring to it, but please don't ask me why I think so. To answer your question would take an effort far greater than an online search, because only the editors of the above encyclopedias and perhaps some of the publishers of the new books would know exactly when the changeover took place. Would you go as far as to write and ask a few of them directly? I'd love to see the results of your inquiry, even though personally I'm not prepared to jump into it at this time. --Poeticbent talk 03:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose

The article is turning into a collection of lists, and contains too much material copied from other related articles. It's a pity that the self-nominator thinks that everything related to Kraków, however trivial, and/or available in other parts of WP, must be included.
--Jotel 15:24, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I’m afraid we’re dealing with the difference of opinion here that will not be resolved easily. I’ve created a number of articles on Kraków’s universities recently (three as DYK's) with the specific purpose of using them as springboards for a more comprehensive Education section of the article on Kraków, as per Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, which reads:
In addition to meeting the requirements for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes.
  1. It is well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable.
  • (a) "Well written" means that the prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard.
  • (b) "Comprehensive" means that the article does not neglect major facts and details.
The need for a more descriptive approach to universities was brought to my attention by User:Dwaipayanc (see above). All featured articles on cities include similar write-ups. It is not my intention to question the guidelines established by Wikipedia, but rather, to follow them to the letter in order to bring this article to the same standard. I acknowledge the fact that Wikipedia:Featured article criteria also states in point 4:
  • It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).
What constitutes "unnecessary detail" could be seen as a subject of interpretation, which brings us back to the issue at hand. However, Wikipedia:Summary style clearly states, that:
The summary in a section at the survey article will necessarily be at least twice as long as the lead section in the daughter article. The daughter article in turn can also serve as a survey article for its specific part of the topic. And so on until a topic is very thoroughly covered. Thus by navigational choices several different types of readers get the amount of detail they want.
My universities' summaries in Education section of Kraków are roughly twice as long as the lead sections of those articles, as required. --Poeticbent talk 18:29, 19 June 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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.