Talk:Vietnam Women's Memorial/GA1

GA Review

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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Nominator: APK (talk · contribs)

Reviewer: Viriditas (talk · contribs) 21:18, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

• Note: As of January 2024, this GAN is eligible for a second appearance at DYK. See revisions at WP:DYKNEW. Viriditas (talk) 21:18, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

Lead

• It is part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., a short distance south of The Wall and north of the Reflecting Pool.

• I don't think it is necessary or required to refer to it as "The Wall", but the convention of referring to it as "the Wall" on Wikipedia is fine. I realize that different style guides exist and call for different ways of capitalizing "the". There's a lot of competing views on this, of course. Viriditas (talk) 03:27, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the sources, Deborah Kent, in The Vietnam Women's Memorial, calls it "the 'Wall'", lowercase "the" with quotes around "Wall", althought she uses "the Wall" without quotes for the most part. Examples from p. 14: "With thousands of other veterans, Diane Evans wept at the Wall as she remembered the many people she had seen die...After her visit to the Wall, Diane's nightmares intensified." Diane Carlson Evans' book, Healing Wounds, also uses the lowercase "the Wall" throughout the book. However, I did notice that in the blurbs at the front of the book, James B. Peake, MD, Lieutenant General, USA (Ret), 6th Secretary of Veterans Affairs, uses "The Wall", so I wonder if it is a military convention. Also, of the many, many uses of "the Wall" in Evans' book, she does use "The Wall" once, which is odd, but here it is: "We'd all volunteered to serve as nurses in the military and many of us would go to war in Vietnam. Lane, twenty-five, of Canton, Ohio, was one of eight female nurses whose names were on The Wall. She was killed in Chu Lai on June 8, 1969—two months before I'd left Vietnam for home." Viriditas (talk) 04:02, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• Glenna Goodacre sculpted the memorial after being selected by the United States Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, two groups that had previously rejected the idea for a memorial to women.

• That's perfectly fine, but there are two alternate ways to do it: 1) "Two groups, the United States Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, selected Glenna Goodacre to sculpt the memorial, after previously rejecting the idea for a memorial to women." 2) The United States Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission selected Glenna Goodacre to sculpt the memorial after previously rejecting the idea for a memorial to women." Viriditas (talk) 03:36, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

History

Memorial plans

• Noting the memorial's focus on men who served during the war, she wanted to also memorialize the more than 11,500 American women who served as nurses and other roles

• This could be a problem with my own reading, or not, but I expected "served as nurses and in other roles", but I suspect both are fine. Viriditas (talk) 23:13, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• Two years later, she and two other veterans, attorney Donna-Marie Boulay and Gerald C. Bender, formed the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation (VWMF) whose goal was to erect a memorial to the women who assisted in the war.

• Do you need a comma before "whose"? "Two years later, she and two other veterans, attorney Donna-Marie Boulay and Gerald C. Bender, formed the Vietnam Women's Memorial Foundation (VWMF), whose goal was to erect a memorial to the women who assisted in the war." Viriditas (talk) 23:27, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• Their idea was repeatedly turned down for the next several years...Evans attended over 35 meetings with bureaucrats during the next several years.

• Instead of repeating "next several years" twice, figure out a way to add some variation. Viriditas (talk) 23:49, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• Maya Lin, who had designed The Wall, opposed the women's memorial, giving credence to other opponents of the plan.

• I've read this sentence three separate times, and I do think it's surprising enough that it deserves a brief explanation either in the body or in a footnote. I don't like to leave the reader hanging like this. Viriditas (talk) 00:17, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Dedication

• In addition to the dedication ceremony, there was many other events marking the occasion

• "There were many other events marking the occasion." Viriditas (talk) 21:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Location and design

• The memorial is sited near The Wall and the Three Soldiers statue at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

• Questions about usage of "The Wall" up above, but I think it's fine as long as its consistent. One point though, is that even the article on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial doesn't call it "The Wall" but rather "the Wall". Viriditas (talk) 20:57, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• According to George Dickie, who was the project's landscape architect, there were three important factors in choosing the memorial site: "(1) that the new Memorial would be set in a location from which the wall could be seen; (2) that there would be easy access to the new site; and (3) that the placement would relate to the design of the park and complement the original design concept of Constitution Gardens."

• You really don't need to say "who was the", when you could more efficiently write: "George Dickie, the project's landscape architect", or even "Landscape architect George Dickie". Also, one wonders if the quoted material could simply be paraphrased for economy. Also, are numbers needed here? My guess is they aren't. "Landscape architect George Dickie chose the site of the Vietnam Women's Memorial based on three important factors: a location where the Wall was visible from the Memorial; accessibility to the Memorial; and a good fit and addition to the existing park layout and Constitution Gardens." Viriditas (talk) 21:04, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• The surrounding landscape includes eight yellowwood trees that represent the eight American women killed during the Vietnam War: Elizabeth Ann Jones, Sharon Ann Lane, Jane Carson, Pamela Dorothy Donovan, Eleanor Grace Alexander, Hedwig Diane Orlowski, Annie Ruth Graham, and Mary Therese Klinker.

• Our article on the Women in the Vietnam War briefly covers the circumstances of their deaths. It would be helpful and informative to somehow summarize it here as well. In other words, "The only servicewoman killed in action was First Lieutenant Sharon Lane; the rest died of accidents and illness". Viriditas (talk) 21:04, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

• The memorial is historically inaccurate as "it depicts nurses giving medical care on the field of battle, such care was only given by U.S. Army medics and U.S. Navy corpsmen, with nurses working exclusively in military hospitals."

• No objection to this statement, but it seems odd to me, as I doubt there is any such thing as a "historically accurate" sculpture or piece of art work. Art, by its very nature, can't be "historically accurate". A good example of how this works is to look at the process a writer and director have to go through to adapt a book or novel for film. It is literally impossible to create a "faithful" adaptation (although many people will say otherwise) because a book and a film are two different mediums, and any film that is faithful to the book is mostly unfit for entertainment. Aside from this torturous analogy, in the same way, no sculpture could be "historically accurate", nor would any artist intend it to be so. Viriditas (talk) 21:51, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

• It occurs to me that this tension arose from the emergence of modern art. The idea that art should be historically accurate is an old one that lost sway approximately 150 years ago. I suspect that some people in the military establishment still hold these older ideas, hence the criticism. I keep forgetting that these old ideas are still around. Viriditas (talk) 23:06, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to reword that without crossing over into unrelated art content. APK hi :-) (talk) 04:10, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

It was just a commentary. No action needed. It occurred to me because I ran into a similar topic while writing about early Impressionism, which pitted a new kind of romantic, imaginative, creative, and experiential-based art against the traditional academic art establishment which made use of so-called historically "accurate" depictions. The former won out and became a transitional gateway to what would later become modern art. The latter has all but disappeared. So, to see a 150-year old argument about art come back again surprised me, but maybe it shouldn't have, since military tradition is rooted in older ideas and opposes change. Viriditas (talk) 23:17, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Issues above addressed by nominator.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (reference section): b (inline citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):

   No issues detected with Earwig's Copyvio Detector. Spot-checks in progress complete.

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Article is stable.

6. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

   I'm confused by the non-free use rationale over at File:Vietnam Women's Memorial.jpg. The LOC Highsmith (Carol M.) Archive description seems to indicate that this image is in the public domain. "Starting in 2002, Highsmith provided scans or photographs she shot digitally with new donations to allow rapid online access throughout the world. Her generosity in dedicating the rights to the American people for copyright free access also makes this Archive a very special visual resource."[1] Viriditas (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

   Nevermind. I see that "freedom of panorama does not cover other artistic works still covered by copyright, including sculptures. Usages of images of such works for commercial purposes may become copyright infringements." Viriditas (talk) 22:10, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

7. Overall: Passing. Good work.

   Pass/Fail:

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.