Talk:Fountain pen/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 22:03, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Reviewing. But before I look at it more seriously, it would be helpful to address the following issues:

• The "History", "Nibs", and "Filling mechanisms" sections are quite long, and there are no subsections. I think adding subsection headings will make it much less intimidating to read these parts of the article.
• The "Feed" section is very short, and doesn't tell me what I want to know: how does the feed allow ink to flow out when I'm writing but not at other times? I think it is in need of significant expansion.
• Is "Most pens use either a piston filler or a cartridge" actually true? My Pilot Metropolitans use a squeeze filler. Is it possible to back this up with some statistics?
• What is the current share of fountain pens in the overall pen market? How many people actually use them?
• There are whole paragraphs and even a whole section (the feed one) without sources. To pass GA, everything must have a source.
• There are many bare-URL references. All references need to be properly and consistently formatted. Additionally, many references appear primary (e.g. patents) or unreliable (e.g. blogs).

—David Eppstein (talk) 22:03, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

The nominator left a note on my talk page, which for convenience I copy here:

I've worked through the article making edits where appropriate. I think it now meets the GA criteria, but would especially appreciate additional clarification about whether the article meets criteria point 2 (verifiable). Thanks! Seba5tien (^talk/_contribs) —Preceding undated comment added 07:21, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

However, I think the sourcing is still deficient. Every claim in every sentence must be sourced. If two or more consecutive sentences of the same paragraph have the same source, it's only necessary to footnote the last one, but footnotes should not span more than one paragraph. As the article is now, many sentences (in all sections) and four entire paragraphs (in the nib flexibility section) are missing footnotes, and many footnotes that look like they span multiple sentences really only cover the material in the final sentence of the span. Additionally, the source in the "Limiting issues" section is an unreliable-looking web page that itself cites Wikipedia, violating WP:CIRCULAR, and the MacKinnon source in the "New patents and inventions" section also looks dubious for reliability. Again, there are many primary (patent) sources and many bare-url sources that need to be fixed. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:18, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

 In progress Hi David, thank you for the helpful clarification regarding sourcing. I have started to review the entire article to ensure that the patent and bare URL sources are rectified. I have also tagged every instance where a source is not present, and will work to provide verifiable and notable references for these. Thanks! Seba5tien (^talk/_contribs) 06:04, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Y I've just finished cleaning up the article, checking references and adding sources. Please let me know if any additional changes need to be made. Thanking you in anticipation, Seba5tien (^talk/_contribs) 07:44, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Partial first reading

Lead section

"its predecessor, the dip pen" sounds like it should be a summary of something in the history section. What is it a summary of?

"a combination of gravity and capillary action": gravity is nowhere later mentioned

pipetting is nowhere later mentioned

The long history section is not summarized here

The nib section is also not summarized

The claim that a detailed technical illustration sourced to a copyrighted blog posting is ineligible for copyright seems at best dubious to me.

Overall, no effort to comply with MOS:LEAD

Original reservoir pens

The French patent figure is misplaced in this section and has a sentence fragment in its caption. Also the claim that it was the first patent needs a source.

European reservoir models

The Schwenter pen is missing a detailed reference

"Noted Maryland historian": WP:PEACOCK

Limiting issues

"Progress was slow" has no source

"the role that air pressure plays" has no source

"most inks were highly corrosive" has no source

"full of sedimentary inclusions" has no source

Poenaru's patent: the source is highly dubious, as it says Poenaru invented the first fountain pen, clearly contradicted by the earlier sections. Also it looks more promotional than scholarly to me.

Mass-manufactured nibs

Mason's nib has no source

The Perry & Co source doesn't mention any 1830 nib machine

"This boosted the Birmingham pen trade and by the 1850s, more than half the steel-nib pens manufactured in the world were made in Birmingham. Thousands of skilled craftsmen were employed in the industry." is sourced to a directory listing for a "Pen Museum" that mentions none of this.

Some of the text reads uncomfortably closely from https://books.google.com/books?id=NH8YBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA31 — was this article copied from the book (in which case we should rewrite to avoid copying) or was the book copied from our article (in which case we cannot use it as a source)?

The reference to "The Manufacture of Steel Pens in Birmingham" could use a link to an online copy, e.g. https://books.google.com/books?id=Sk8jAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA148

That source says nothing about the invention of new manufacturing techniques, worldwide sales, market expansion to people previously unable to afford quills (really? it's a bird feather), or "encouraging the development of education and literacy".

New patents and inventions

Lyman's source could use a link

"steadily accelerating stream": source?

I've already complained about the "who invented" source, but although it mentions gold tips, I don't see any mention of hard rubber and better ink, nor of those three being the key inventions needed for wide popularity.

The source for MacKinnon and Cross looks like a sales site and mentions none of the details of their invention

The remaining source for the five final sentences of the second paragraph sources none of them, not even the last one.

"a slow and messy procedure" has no source

"the most successful of these was probably" sourced by two more unreliable looking sales sites, neither of which compares the relative success of these solutions

"The tipping point, however, was the runaway success of Walter A. Sheaffer's lever-filler" is contradicted by its source, which says that it "wasn’t the first truly successful lever". Also, tipping point for what?

"paralleled by Parker's roughly contemporary button-filler": source?

At this point I gave up on a detailed reading. The sourcing problems already indicated above have been papered over but are far from solved. My impression is that well over the majority of individual sentences are still badly sourced. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:11, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Failing

There has been no additional progress in the last two weeks, and the article is still far from meeting the GA criteria. At this point, I think what the article needs is for an editor to go through the article slowly and carefully, checking that each phrase is meaningful, correct, and sourced to scholarly rather than promotional sources, and that the overall article makes sense as a whole (another issue that needs work but that the review comments above didn't really touch on, because there were more major sourcing issues that needed to be addressed first). But this process will take more time and energy than we have seen so far, and the best way to provide that time is to step back from the Good Article nomination process for now so that there is no need to rush to meet a deadline. Therefore, I am going to fail the GA nomination for now. The article can be re-nominated once that thorough revision process is complete. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:32, 15 August 2016 (UTC)