Talk:Norm Sartorius

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Norm Sartorius/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 21:48, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a very interesting topic to bring to GAC, and I applaud you for your interest in improving this corner of Wikipedia; however, this article is not ready for GA status yet. There are two key problems which need to be resolved:

First, tone. The article uses a lot of rather rhetorical language which, in places, seems to fall foul of the neutral point of view. Here are a few examples: "explored the common wooden spoon as a context for unique sculptures that span many styles", "top woodworking and craft shows", "highly attuned to nature as a child", "He found that work unfulfilling and longed for a job that resulted in a stronger sense of achievement", "live life centered on craft and creativity", "unique wooden spoons", "his maturing design style", "endless exploration", "As he has said", "classic book", "his sensitivity to the unique character", "broadened and deepened", "In fact", "reacts to the virtues of each piece of wood", "often with an interesting background story",

A particularly bad example is "He places his most interesting pieces of wood within sight of his workbench, often for months, to contemplate possible spoons may that lie within.[38] Once he sees the spoon a piece can become, he acts quickly on the idea because he feels his creative inspirations cannot be turned on and off at will, but must be recognized and acted upon.[39]" Wikipedia's prose does not have to be dry and boring, but this currently reads more like a magazine article by an admirer or a biography on a personal website (particularly when it comes to the lists of appearances and media coverage) than a dispassionate encyclopedia article. If you are trying to reflect a judgement claim made by a reliable source (or the subject himself), perhaps this could be made clearer in the text itself. For example, rather than "He reacts to the virtues of each piece of wood", you could say something like (though note that I'm making up the quote...) "Sartorious has said that he aims to "react to the virtues" of each piece of wood, rather than..."

The second major problem: Image copyright. No sources or evidence of free release are provided for any of the photographs (the portrait or the sculpture pictures) and, when it comes to photographing sculptures, there are other issues to be aware of- see Commons:Commons:Derivative works. Depending on a variety of particularities, we would probably need an explicit release from the photographer and from Sartorious himself.

Some other little things to think on:

• Why have you moved the contents list like that?
• Be aware of MOS:LQ
• "In terms of design inspiration, Sartorius draws on spoon-making traditions in diverse cultures, his influences have ranged from Northwest Coast Native American horn spoons to carved spoons from West Africa" Comma splice
• Some areas of the prose seem a little underwikified. For example, some art/wood jargon could possibly be helpfully linked when it appears.
• There seem to be at least a few potentially controversial claims which are unsourced. For instance, where is the source for the claim that "The provenance of his raw materials contributes significantly to both the making and the sale of his spoons"? The "works" section, in particular, reads like original research.
• There are a lot of external links in the main article- this is something you should try to cut down on. They come across as a little spammy- our articles should be as self-contained as possible.

I know this probably isn't very satisfying for you, but the problems with tone and with image copyright are enough to close this review at this time; I encourage you to renominate the article once you have dealt with these issues (but, of course, I can't promise that other issues won't be raised; I've not had a detailed look at the sources you cite, for example though at first glance they seem appropriate). If I can be of any further help, please feel free to contact me on my talk page or reply here- I am watching this page. You will have noticed the tag I have placed on the article concerning tone- I am not going to take any action concerning the images right now, but if the issue hasn't been resolved in a few days, I will do. Josh Milburn (talk) 22:14, 26 July 2015 (UTC)