Comments by Nikkimaria

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Leaning support

Nikkimaria (talk) 14:58, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Sasata

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thanks for the review - I'm about to be kinda busy for the rest of the day, so it'll probably be tomorrow morning before I'm teenager free enough to deal with some of these. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:27, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whoo! Teenagers put off the trip to the mall by an hour... jumping in here... Ealdgyth - Talk 20:55, 26 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Carcharoth

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Comments

Overall, as I said above, the main body of the article is fine, but I think the lead needs quite a bit of polishing and copyediting. Carcharoth (talk) 11:57, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should be able to get to this hopefully tonight but by Sunday evening at the latest. RL has me very busy with a couple of projects that should be done soon (I hope at least!) Ealdgyth - Talk 14:31, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Struck-out the dealt with stuff, but the new concerns I have will be harder to address. I'm currently unlikely to support unless I can be convinced that the deficiencies in the sources don't detract from this being a featured article. i.e. if the sources are not comprehensive and contradict each other, how can this article be comprehensive and internally consistent? Also need reassurance that the Mangels issue being researched was addressed before or during the FAC, and not left as an unresolved matter. Carcharoth (talk) 01:57, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As for comprehensive - I would consider it original research for me to count the animals in the photographs. Especially as I did not take a "complete" set of photographs, but merely enough to establish a good feel for the quality of the carving and such. Let me turn this on it's ear.... if there are no secondary sources that cover an aspect of a subject, that is not and has not been a reason to fail an FAC. Note that we've had a number of species articles that lack current research on some aspects, yet they were able to become FAs. Would you consider a topic such as a medieval nobleman not comprehensive if we couldn't discover the name of his wife? Or when exactly he died? Even if the sources just don't say? Those would be considered "major aspects" of a subject, but in fact we do have several FAs on medieval noblemen where we don't know that information ... and it's so stated.
I'm sorry if I seem a bit cranky here, but you're asking for things that aren't possible from the sources, and then expressing a view at variance with the usual standards of FA. If need be, you can check with Sandy or Andy about this. It's late here, and I'll deal with the other concerns you've brought up in the morning. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:16, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You are not being at all cranky. It's fine. What raised my concern was when you said "we have conflicting sources that don't ever acknowledge that they conflict". Could you go into more detail on that point? That might reassure me. I'll think on the comprehensiveness aspect some more, but I think that a distinction should be made between information never likely to be known, and information that is not yet known. What is the case here? Carcharoth (talk) 02:23, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
With some of this, we won't know. We'll never know whether the original carver meant deer or reindeer (the animals, having looked at my picts of them, aren't really very clear...since they are not exactly natural colors). We won't know WHICH animal is the replacement (the museum doesn't now, or if they do, they aren't telling). We won't know when exactly the animals were carved. I've been trying to turn up information on the Mangels things, but ... the main interest in carousels is the animals. Folks just aren't as interested in the machinery that powered them, and the writing and research just isn't done. It may never be done. I'll try to tease out some wording on the conflict there but like I said, the museum themselves know that there is only one animal missing - which is reflected in the NHR application, and I'm not sure if the discrepency is from poor copyediting in the Keep an Eye on that Mummy book or if there is an unpublished "find" of an animal or what. Like I said, it's late, and I'm getting fuzzy. Better for me to edit in the morning when I'm fresh. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:35, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I mean, I could get the museum to put a detailed diagram up somewhere on their webpage that details which animals go where, but that's pretty much the only way it's going to happen. Neither the Carousel Association nor the NHR application (which are the two sources you'd expect to give a detailed description of the arrangement) do so. As far as I can tell, the Carousel Association isn't concerned with exact layouts, and just counts the various types. This may be because the layouts will vary with time - as they get preservation and conservation work done on them. I would have expected the Carousel Assciation to do this, but they don't. Nor does the NHR application. If neither of those groups felt that the layout was pertinent... who are we think differently? Ealdgyth - Talk 02:38, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, retreat from detail if not covered sufficiently or consistently enough in the sources. Could you point me to a picture of the reindeer/deer, as it should look more like one than the other. And if there is uncertainty, then 'deer' would be good enough. If they have antlers, then "stags" might also be good enough. If confusion is unavoidable, you need to make clear that the confusion arises from the sources, not from the writing of the article. i.e. Say that source A says this and source B says something else. But I went and read another source, the NHR application, and that answered the question I gave earlier, about the other old Dentzel carousels: on page 3 of 9 it mentions Logansport and Meridian location of the other Dentzels and gives dates, so why did you say that your sources didn't contain this information? Carcharoth (talk) 03:02, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, because I read the cited source ... not everything else. Forest, trees. I think you're concentrating on leaves and not seeing the forest, much less the trees. What information does it help about THIS carousel to know what the other two old carousels are? Make a case for including the exact names, and I'd be more inclined to include it, but otherwise it's just extraneous detail that's not going to tell us anything about this particular carousel. The important bit, that it's one of the three oldest Dentzel's, is already in the article. Too much detail can detract from an article just as much as too little. I could see it if there were comparative studies between the three carousels, but if there are, I've not found them. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:40, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'm going to focus on 'make a case for including the exact names' and why I don't think this is extraneous detail. I'm also going to try and describe how this unfolded from my point of view, to help you understand where I am coming from.
(1) In the article I read: "The carousel is one of the three oldest surviving Dentzel menagerie carousels." That's interesting, I thought. I wonder what the other two are and where they are? I went to the source, but nothing there, so I asked here at the review.
(2) You replied "Not from my sources" (plural), so I assumed you were mentally referring to all the other sources you had used while compiling this article. Later, while checking out something else, I opened the NHRP nomination pdf document and was rather shocked to find the information about the other carousels there, so came back here to make that point, maybe a bit too forcefully, but it did seem like an oversight to me.
(3) Later still (earlier today), I was idly looking down the list of "what links here" for this article, and I was shocked again to see that we actually have articles on these other two carousels: Spencer Park Dentzel Carousel and Highland Park Dentzel Carousel and Shelter Building. This is not that surprising, actually, as they are both, like this one, National Historic Landmarks. But my puzzlement grew as to why these ones mention this article, but there is no reciprocal mention here.
(4) I then dug around in the article history and found that this article mentioned the others two by name and link from the moment of creation in March 2008 up until the information dropped out with this edit (by you) in January 2011.
The way I see it, the original author of all three carousel articles (the same editor in each case) mentioned and linked all of them to each other, understandably in my view, and the information only dropped out of this article recently in an edit where you said 'reorg data a bit'. My initial assumption would be that you had intended to move the information and had forgotten to put it back in. Anyway, my case for putting the names in and linking them would be purely that readers of this article (about a Dentzel carousel) would like to read articles about the other Dentzel carousels we have articles on, and that these other two are also National Historic Landmarks. Carcharoth (talk) 20:55, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Let me get dinner and my headache under control (Yesterday was in the 80's F, today was in the 40s, talk about whipsaw weather! - that's pretty much a 15 or so C drop, if I'm converting correctly) and I'll get to this, but I'm leaning towards including... just need to gather the information and get it in. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've placed it in an explanatory footnote for now, to keep from interupting the flow too badly. Does that work? Ealdgyth - Talk 23:20, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Maybe double-check the right ref is being used? I think I'm nearly done here. Only the mystery of the Kissel spelling, and that should be everything. Will read through again tomorrow and decide whether to support or not. I'm unlikely to oppose, at any rate. Carcharoth (talk) 23:29, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Already corrected. Blame the sinus meds. I'll dig some on Kissell, but the only place I recall seeing them mentioned was in the current ref used where they are spelled Kissell. I'll do a bit of a google search... Ealdgyth - Talk 23:34, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't get distracted by the milkshake murder! Carcharoth (talk) 23:37, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And if anyone wants copies of my sources, I'm more than happy to scan and email them to you. Unlike a bishop or some of the other articles I've written, nothing used for this is so large that I can't easily email all the sources used to someone. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:51, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd say on my part that it's me mainly doing the work. I did get help from the Museum, but I'm not a member of GLAM, nor did I find out about it through GLAM. The museum's wikiepdian in residence contacted me about helping get it together, and I did meet with the museum staff and visit there for photographs and some information, but the main help was putting me in contact with someone at the Indiana Historical Archives for some of the newspaper articles. I've left the "publicity" to the wikipedian in residence, as I did not want it to seem like I was "working" for the museum and thus might not be far enough from the subject to give it an independent research effort. So, no, I don't see it as "official", as I'm not connected with either the museum nor with GLAM. Unofficially, yes, as I did get some help from them in the initial research, but it wasn't like some of the big British Museum collaborations. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:44, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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