Talk:Lohn Estate/GA1

Latest comment: 2 years ago by Modussiccandi in topic GA Review

GA Review edit

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


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Reviewer: Modussiccandi (talk · contribs) 20:46, 8 June 2021 (UTC)Reply


I'll be happy to take a look at this one. I will start adding comments on here tomorrow or on Thursday. Modussiccandi (talk) 20:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Rate Attribute Review Comment
1. Well-written:
  1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct. I will go through the prose once the article has been expanded but I foresee no major issues.
  1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation. This is one area which I believe needs some work for this article to be on a GA level. The lead is too short and does not fulfil the function of being a "miniature" article. This means that every major facet should briefly be mentioned. For an article of this length, two well developed paragraphs should be enough.

The other problem is regarding list incorporation. The list under "The second building" needs to be transformed into prose. Ideally with a short description of who everybody was, à la "German chancellor Konrad Adenauer." (Incidentally, this needs to be done elsewhere in the article, too.)

2. Verifiable with no original research:
  2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline. We are generally encouraged to approve all citation styles that conform to the style guide. Therefore the article passes this criterion. Most FAs and many GAs use a style where cited items are kept in a "Bibliography" (like in the Weimar article you reviewed). This has the advantage of making the "References" section easy to read. No need to switch to the system; I'm just mentioning it because I think it is the best one to use on here.
  2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). The sources used are an academic book, government documents, and a Swiss newspaper. All are reliable. Everything in the article is referenced and there are no unreferenced claims.
  2c. it contains no original research. The article is densely sourced and there does not seem to a problem with OR.
  2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism. Earwig's Copyvio Detector shows only one page with some similarities. The wording is identical but I believe the page is a copy of Wikipedia. Anyway, I think the lead is in need of improvement; so I presume this will get reworded.
3. Broad in its coverage:
  3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic. There are sections for the main aspects. However, the "Description" section is very brief and I find it hard to believe that not more can be extracted from here. I would expect perhaps 2 or 3 developed paragraphs.
  3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style). The opposite is more at issue here; see above.
  4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each. I have detected no problems with neutrality or POV pushing.
  5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute. The article has a stable history with nearly all recent edits coming from the nominator.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
  6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content. All images have been released for use and have appropriate tags. No problems here.
  6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions. All images used illustrate the topic well, which is important in an article such as this one. They could be position better but this is something that is best addressed after the text has been expanded.
  7. Overall assessment. Pending

@JBchrch: The table above represents my initial assessment of the article. My key takeaways are these: The "Description" section needs to be expanded, the "The second building" subsection needs to be made into proper prose. When that's done you'll need to craft a developed lead. If you are happy to make these improvements first, I'll go through the text and suggest more detailed improvements. I wouldn't want to make these suggestions now since the article is still some way (but not a long way) off. If you feel like you don't want to dedicate yourself to making these changes at the moment, I could give the article a failing grade and it could be nominated again in the future. I'd be happy to continue working with this review but it's up to you, of course. Best, Modussiccandi (talk) 20:54, 9 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Modussiccandi: First of all, thank you very much for having taken the time to do this review. I am very happy to make the improvements that you suggested. If I take a a few days (max a week) to do them is that OK for you?
  • I'm pretty sure that I have enough material in my pre-existing sources to add more content to the § Description section.
  • Lead: sure 👍
  • About the copyvio issue, yes I'm pretty sure that the website copied from the article: I remember distinctly struggling with language tags in order to construct the first sentence in "Wikipedia format". If you'd like I can confirm that by providing a diff.
  • Regarding the list, I'm just wondering what are your expectations with respect to prose. Do you think that I need to turn the list into sentences, or is it sufficient if I add one or two details to each item (as in "Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom")?
@JBchrch: The latter. Example: "including British Prime Minster Winston Churchill, German chancellor Konrad Adenauer etc." I will stop pinging you on this page because I'm assuming you have it on your watchlist. But do ping me when you feel you've added enough content. Best, Modussiccandi (talk) 22:34, 9 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  • Many thanks for the advice regarding the bibliography. I am aware of that issue, and consciously decided to forego the bibliography since I only had one book and the rest were online ressources and newspaper articles. I did it the proper way on another article that I recently wrote :)
Cheers. JBchrch talk 21:43, 9 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Modussiccandi:, I have now expanded the article, the lead, and improved the list of guests. Let me know what you think! Thanks. JBchrch talk 14:36, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Thank you. I'll have a look and perhaps make a few changes myself. I saw that I failed to properly explain what I meant by 'turn into prose' but now that each of the guests has a description, I'll go and quickly turn them into a contiguous list. I'll be back with more later. Modussiccandi (talk) 14:59, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Just a small correction regarding this edit [1]. The sources say that "campagnes" are characteristic of the Bernese nobility, and that this one in particular is built in the Neo-classical style. The original sentence was probably unclear anyway. From Bilfinger, p. 4: Bernese "campagnes". This term refers to a type of country estate—elegant country houses—, mostly constructed by member of the Bernese nobility. ... They were invariably inhabited in the summer months only, hardly ever the whole year round. Their owners possessed at least one second house in town. JBchrch talk 15:30, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Got it, feel free to change accordingly. Below is a list of things I've found during my last read-through. Let me know if you have questions or comments. Modussiccandi (talk) 15:42, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
  Done JBchrch talk 16:49, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

Things to fix after expansion edit

The first building edit

  • It is somewhat difficult to follow how the estate passed from Samuel Bondeli to the Tscharner family. I believe this is because the second sentence appears to anticipate what happens later in this section. I only realised after my second read-though that the family info is actually relevant to how the estate was inherited. I would re-read the section and arrange it in a way that's easier to follow.
  •   Done I'm not sure if I was drunk when I wrote this section or if it's a legacy section by another editor who was drunk when they wrote it. Anyway, I rewrote it to match the sources.
  • Related to the first point: you need to make clearer the what you mean by "The first Lohn estate" is a previous, smaller structure on the same site. Consider something like "the first building on the Lohn estate was constructed by S. Bondeli. His was a modest building ...".
  •   Done

The first building edit

  • On December 30, 2005, Ursula and Fritz Siegenthaler... this bit seems superfluous and poorly integrated. Consider cutting. (You'll have seen that I've removed some bits of info because I felt they weren't strictly relevant. I hope that's okay.)
  •   Done

Description edit

  • Another noteworthy element is that the house is not directed towards the Alpine panorama... Say why this is 'noteworthy'. Also, I would make it more explicit what the 'Alpine panorama' is, e. g. "the house does not offer a view of the Alps".
  •   Done, to the extent of what I could extract from my source.
  • The Estate features a park... here, estate is capitalised while elsewhere it is not. Which is correct?
  •   Done corrected to lowercase.

Images edit

  • All images need alternative captions (WP:MOSALT). These are verbal descriptions aimed at those with visual impairments. The |alt= parameter will add these in a hidden state to your images. They need not be long though the important part is to make them helpful in conjunction with the actual caption. This means that they shouldn't just repeat what the normal caption says but add information that one would normally get by looking at the image.
  • I am always happy to add parameters that can help the visually impaired, as you may have noticed. However, I was wondering if that can be something I could work on at a later stage, since this part of the MOS is not in the GA criterias. Since English is not my native language (and since my area of work is generally finance!) coming up with good visual description of a manor will require a non-trivial amount of work on my end. JBchrch talk 16:57, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Modussiccandi: I think I have implemented all your suggestions, save for the alternative image descriptions, as explained above. However, I am in any case going to proofread everything once again tonight and will probably do some cleanup/changes. Let me know after that at some point (or earlier, if you'd like) which additional changes need to be done. JBchrch talk 17:39, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply

@JBchrch:Very good indeed. No worries about the alternative captions. I'm coming off a recently-concluded FA process where these things get mentioned all the time; so it's probably a remnant of that. There is one (hopefully) final thing: the lead, even though you've already expanded it, could still be longer. The current lead doesn't say much about the estate itself. Essentially, what is lacking in the lead is a two-sentence summary of the 'Description' section. Also, don't hesitate do override things I added during your copy-edit if I messed up. Best, Modussiccandi (talk) 17:50, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
Congrats on the FA 👍. I did my little proofreading and attempted to expand the lead per your comment. Again, let me know if you feel that other changes or additions are necessary. JBchrch talk 21:06, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
@JBchrch: Having gone through the article again, I feel that all criteria are now satisfied. This is a small topic and you've managed to compile an above average article on it. Good work. I will now promote the article to GA status. Best, Modussiccandi (talk) 21:52, 12 June 2021 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.