Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Old Louisville/archive1

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 00:11, 12 May 2007.

[edit] Old Louisville

I have been working on this article off and on since it looked like this, and have finally gotten around to addressing the last of the issues raised in a very productive peer review last November. I am sure the article isn't perfect, but think it's about time to try FAC, as I'm not sure what I can do at this point except shuffle the deck chairs about. --W.marsh 21:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment those web refs will need formatting, W.marsh. One or two don't have retrieved dates, one has a different date format etc.-- Zleitzen^(talk) 00:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

• Done, except I didn't see which one had an incorrect date format. --W.marsh 02:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  There's still different formats. 1st ref no date. Lindenburger has a different date format. And the Maisy Fernandez ref is also formatted differently to others.-- Zleitzen^(talk) 15:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  They all look okay to me... some are news references, which don't require an access date as far as I know. I don't know if the cite web and cite news templates format stuff differently, but that's all I'm using. Cite web was changed recently and does display dates differently, but both all dates are being input in the same format by me, as far as I know. If there's something else you see that is wrong, please fix it... but it sounds like the problem is that the templates (which are supposed to be comparable) are spitting out different formats for some reason. --W.marsh 17:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  You're right, its the templates. On Cite web the access dates read 25 July 2006 whilst on Cite news the publication dates reads 2006-07-25. That's a bit odd. Forget about it. Good work.-- Zleitzen^(talk) 22:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

  This has been up so long an editor has added some new material that isn't properly formatted, and looks a bit dubious to be honest.-- Zleitzen^(talk) 00:58, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

  I know... I basically withdraw this nomination, as the article seems to still need some work and I'm the only active editor of this article. I'll bring it back to FAC if I get the energy to revamp some things. I figured it would have been removed from the FAC page by now. --W.marsh 01:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

  As for the stuff by the editor, we probably should mention Domine's books about Old Louisville since they're somewhat popular (locally at least). He's the only one really promoting the "haunted neighborhood" thing though. The sourcing wasn't really acceptable though, so I've removed it. --W.marsh 12:14, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment Tallest buildings section looks awkward. It's just a short list in the middle of prose, I'd suggest converting it to prose and mentioning it somewhere else or expanding it and putting it at the end. Aaron Bowen 03:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't think it would work very well as prose... sometimes a list is just the best way to convey information. But those buildings really aren't why this neighborhood is important/interesting... most neighborhoods in big cities have a few tall and generic apartment/office buildings here and there. I could do with removing the list altogether. --W.marsh 04:11, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment—might need a quick copy-edit to weed out redundancies and glitches. I'd be willing, but I'm quite busy. Nice article. — Deckiller 13:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
• I would suggest uploading Image:St. James Court Fountain.jpg to the Wikimedia Commons so, even if the licenser changes the license, it can stay there; we at Wikipedia don't have a system to verify changed Flickr licenses. Image:Uoflflood.jpg is an unacceptable by-permission-only image and should be deleted unless the copyright owner agrees to release it, but first the owner needs to be identified. Where was Image:3rd Avenue 1897.jpg published before 1923? --Iamunknown 00:33, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I was told by the person who had the 1897 image (a University of Louisville librarian with the image archives) that the image was public domain. I don't know where it was published or even if it was published (a lot of their stuff is just donated private collections), but it was certainly taken in 1897. The flood image was a good one to include but the guy who uploaded it, when I looked into things, had actually uploaded a lot of images as public domain that weren't, so I deleted the image. It's a shame, that might even be one we should use as fair use to show what the area looked like during the flood, I think that's one situation where fair use is called for. As for the Flickr image, it's unlikely this particular uploader will change the license, but if you think it should be on commons, feel free to move it over. --W.marsh 12:08, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

• Comment 1c issues — Quite a few uncited quotes, and lots of uncited hard data — things like crime and population density. (Zleitzen, check to see if you have your date preferences set in "My preferences"). Strike that - the date parameter is not correctly wikified in the cite templates, causing inconsistency in date formatting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:54, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I didn't put a citation on every sentence, but a lot of the quotes are from the source cited at the end of the paragraph. Also this describes the crime paragraph, it should all be backed up by the article cited as a source at the end of that paragraph. As for the demographics, your comment lead me to a real treasure trove of statistical data, a study by a U. Louisville professor, which I've cited (unfortunately it's in Powerpoint format, but there are free viewers available). I've added 3 citations which I think improves things... if you really think the quotes should be directly cited, I can do that but it will be a while... the books I use as references are non-circulating at the library and long out of print. --W.marsh 01:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
• First support—plenty of feedback, no supports; one is overdue! — Deckiller 00:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Appears to meet the criteria. Cla68 07:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Three problems in the first paragraph:
  • "the neighborhood is said to contain the highest concentration of residential homes with stained glass windows in the U.S." Why only "said to"? The source claims it is so. If you don't trust the source enough to remove the "said to" then it probably shouldn't be cited at all.
  • "There are also several 20th century buildings from 15 to 20 stories." I don't know anything about architecture, but doesn't this contradict the statement that it is a "neighborhood featuring purely Victorian architecture".
  • "If Old Louisville were its own city, it would have the fourth largest skyline in Kentucky." Does something have to be its own city in order to have skyline? Wouldn't "highest skyline" be more appropriate?--Carabinieri 20:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I've addressed these... the main confusion with the "purely victorian architecture" is that A) it refers to the preservation district, which excludes the northern tip of the neighborhood (where the neighborhood was razed and the tall buildings built in the 1950s through 1970s). The preservation district is full of streets where no buildings have been torn down, although there are a few more modern developments that crept in, so it's not purely Victorian, but you could probably count the exceptions on one hand. I removed the skyline claim since it's really not that important in the first place, and changed the bit about the stained glass. --W.marsh 20:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Already in the lead I see bad signs.
  • "Third largest such district"—US writers prefer fewer hyphens, but here I think they'd like one. Why "such" here, but the more specific "preservation district" in the very next clause?
  • Also-itis, a common WPian disease. There are two redundant cases in the first para; weed them out of the whole article unless they do something.
  • "a majority of"—you want to stress "more than 50%"? Or just "most"?
  • The second para consists of two sentences that don't belong together.
  • Remove "actually". There's another one at the start of "History".

This is worth saving; call in favours from copy-editors you know. The whole text needs a run-through by fresh eyes. Perhaps ask Raul for more time? Tony 00:54, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• • These are good suggestions but I really don't foresee getting this copy edited... it's been open a month already. Either people are going to copy edit it or not... I'm not going to beg. --W.marsh 01:15, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
• Comment—how come all the feedback comes after I removed it from the template? :) — Deckiller 01:29, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I still oppose, because the footnotes need to be revamped to comply with WP:CITE. Right now they're a mess. Here are some ideas for copyediting for the History section. I have yet to read any more but will do so within the next couple of days.

• "A major attraction was Oakland Race Track, near today's Seventh and Ormsby, built in 1839 and an early forerunner to Churchill Downs" I think it would be better tom mention that these are horse racetracks. I know that Louisville is pretty famous for hosting horse races and that everyone can click on the link to find out what kind of track, but you can't assume everyone has this knowledge of the city and a Wikipedia article should be able stand on its own without people having to check up on things. Besides that would only require adding one word.
• ""advance the material welfare of the producing classes of the South and West."" Perhaps the fact that Watterson is referring to the South and West of the United States should be added in brackets to that quote, otherwise it's ambiguous, although most people would probably be able to guess the meaning.
• "According to historian Young E. Allison, 260 homes valued at a total of $1.6 million were constructed in Old Louisville from 1883 to 1886" This fact seems to be reliable enough to remove the "according to...".
• "These styles became less prevalent in the 1890s as the remaining southern portions of Old Louisville, between Ormsby and the House of refuge, were filled in ..." If House of refuge is a proper noun, I'll bet you refuge is also capitalized
• "Many homes of Old Louisville were originally built as mansions that would require several servants to maintain." Shouldn't "was built" be changed to "had been built", since it is referring to something that happened before the "Decline".
• Some missing wikilinks; examples: Manual High School, University of Louisville, D.C. (maybe even changed to Washington, D.C. ?).
• "...spurring interest in preservation that lead many local activists moved to the area." I don't really understand that.
• "This effort also lead to" To lead is conjugated wrongly, it should be "led".
• "The area has continued to improve, with new restaurants and shops opening and many students, and young professionals moving into the area." The comma usage is wrong.
• "This overall process of improvement and rising property values has been described as gentrification" That sentence is odd. Is it controversial whether the term can be applied in this case? If not, then why not change this from "has been described as" to "is called". But I think it should be either removed completely or moved to somewhere in the paragraph.
• "Crime is still a problem." That may be your POV, but criminals may disagree.
• "Overall crime rates for both Old Louisville and the city as a whole increased sharply in 2005 over the 2004 rate, although there was a decline again the first half of 2006." Isn't that way too much detail considering the amount of coverage the change in crime rate from say 1910 to 1912 receives in this article?--Carabinieri 22:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I withdraw this... if people want to improve the article they can copy edit and create wikilinks themselves. I don't own this article. --W.marsh 22:51, 10 May 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.