Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Vädersolstavlan/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 by User:SandyGeorgia 18:42, 2 June 2008 [1].

[edit] Vädersolstavlan

This is a GA, reviewed and discussed. I recently added a reference from 2007, so the article should be updated too.
Self-nominator Raven in Orbit (t | c) 11:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC) (aka Mats Halldin)

Comments

• What makes http://www.atoptics.co.uk/ a reliable source? Note I'm not saying it's necessarily not one, but I don't see anything that jumps at me and says it is.

Not reading Swedish, I can't evaluate the sources in Swedish. The link checker tool is showing one site with a soft 404 redirect. This one:http://www.sl.se/ErrorPage.htm. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments.

• atopics.co.uk is run by Les Cowley who has studied the halo in the painting. AFAIK, the site is one of the most widely used on-line references on atmospheric optics. (And that's not me suggesting I'm an expert from the field.)

• I've repaired the sl.se link. Apparently, they've updated the site lately.

/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 14:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

• Several uncited paragraphs, including but not limited to: "In 1523, as the newly elected King of Sweden", "The painting is used on a variety of merchandise""The painting shows a bridge stretching north", "Where the southern city gates were"
• "(left to right)[14]:" References go after punctuation
• Every time "Vädersolstavlan i Storkyrkan" is referenced, it needs page numbers.

There are more issues than these, though. Gary King (talk) 18:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out, I must admit I do use references a bit randomly. I've lived my entire life in Stockholm and I avoid leaving it. Some things related to the city are so self-evident to me that I tend to think of them as not needing citations.

• I agree about the "elected king" claim needing a citation. I don't have one right now, but I'll try to produce one. And I just discovered I missed a citation for the "Like the islands, the ridges surrounding the city, ..." section. I didn't make this up; it comes from one of the sources already available in the article - I'll try to fix this.
• However, I can't see any reason to doubt the painting is depicting Stockholm looking east, so I can't see a need for adding references for sentences claiming various structures are facing/pointing in various cardinal directions.
• Stockholm really is littered with various products featuring the painting, so finding a citation for it seemed redundant to me. (Here is a link to a puzzle at the Stockholm City Museum.) I guess I could produce a photo from any museum shop in town.

It would still be WP:OR as we can't just "take your word for it". Gary King (talk) 19:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, I get your point, but finding a ref for this is like finding a ref confirming Mona Lisa is used for all sorts of honky-tonk. Would the example above be enough?
/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 21:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• The "left to right" list comes from reference [14], so the citation is valid for the entire list. Maybe I should add a ref tag for every item in the list?

No, I mean ref goes after the colon (:) Gary King (talk) 19:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Done
/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 21:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• Rothlind's Vädersolstavlan i Storkyrkan article is 7 pages long. Why is there a need for more specific page numbers?

I wasn't aware. Fair enough. Gary King (talk) 19:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd greatly appreciate if you could point out other similar problems in the article.

/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 19:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I was greatly helped by 4u1e with my shortcomings in English. As a non-native English speaker I feel I can but admire you people reworking the prose. Here below are my five pennies: —Preceding unsigned comment added by Raven in Orbit (talk • contribs)

Prose issues:

• "Facing these challenges, the king saw conspiracies everywhere, sometimes correctly, and started to thoroughly fortify his capital." — The commas really feel like they are stopping the sentence a few times, as if you're in a car and the brakes are applied when you least suspect it. The wording also doesn't seem as professional as I would like. It can definitely be polished further.

I don't see the problem here. Please improve this sentence if you can.
/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 21:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Reworded. / Raven in Orbit (t | c) 15:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• "while the king, in contrast gave his unreserved support." → "while the king, in contrast, gave his unreserved support."?

Done
/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 21:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• "Although the king and the reformer collaborated initially, within a few years they started to pull in different directions." doesn't connect very well. Perhaps "Although the king and the reformer collaborated initially, they started to pull in different directions within a few years."?

Done
/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 21:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

• "The primary historical source describing the events following the celestial phenomenon is the minutes of the proceedings from the king's legal process against the reformers Olaus Petri and Laurentius Andreae in 1539–1540 as described by the clerk and historian Erik Jöransson Tegel in his chronicle of Gustav Vasa written in the early 17th century." Wow. Technically, I would say this is grammatically correct, but perhaps it can be bogged down less? It's just... really long and winding.

I broke it up into two sentences, let me know if this is not what you meant.
/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 21:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Reworded. / Raven in Orbit (t | c) 15:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• "Devil - one" convert to em dash, per WP:DASH (—)

Done
/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 21:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

These were all found in the History section. Gary King (talk) 19:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

These were just samples; there are several more issues in the text. I don't mean to be critical, but if I don't look for issues, then others will. I've also gone through the FAC process with my own articles and have received very similar criticism (just ask User:Tony1, User:Laser brain, or User:BuddingJournalist). Gary King (talk) 00:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I understand you are supposed to be critical -- a FAC process would of course be worthless if you weren't. No problems with me. It's the first time I'm attempting a FAC, so even if it fails I will learned a lot from it. BTW, I've added a lot more references and reworded various sections. Apparently I still got a lot to learn.

/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 15:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Avoid articles in section titles - "The church and the castle" can be changed to "church and castle"
• Possible weasel word - arguably. I don't have access to ref#1, but couldn't this be attributed to it?
• Found one contraction - isn't. There might be more.
• Footnotes should be located after punctuation. Most of them are, but there's at least a few that aren't.
• "However, a copy from 1636 by Jacob Heinrich Elbfas held in Storkyrkan in Stockholm, is believed to be an accurate copy and was until recently erroneously thought to be the restored original." - should there really be a comma?
• I'm not an expert on this, but between years (i.e. "1998–1999" in the lead) I'm fairly sure there should be an en dash, not a hyphen.
• "The painting was commissioned by the Swedish reformer Olaus Petri, and the resulting controversies between him and King Gustav Vasa and the historical context remained a well-kept secret for centuries." - awkward sentence, consider rephrasing.

Nousernamesleft^{copper, not wood} 17:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for those suggestions, Nousernamesleft.

I've now realised I need to rework various parts of the article and I'm in the middle of the process of reordering the entire reference section. Could I have this nomination postponed for a while? Is there a template or something for this? Sorry for stealing your time folks.

/ Raven in Orbit (t | c) 18:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've withdrawn this. Please see WP:FAC/ar and leave the {{fac}} template on the talk page until the bot adds it to articlehistory. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.