Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hotel Polen fire/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 19:44, 4 February 2012 [1].

Hotel Polen fire

Nominator(s): S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 04:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article again because I believe it complies with the FAC after having been looked over by several experienced users. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 04:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"In an enormous dust cloud, the entire hotel collapsed to the ground. The fire department proceeded to extinguish the smoking debris, and at 9:30 am the fire was declared under control." - source?

Fixed: I re-read the sources and added some refs and removed some claims which are (as of yet) unsourced. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 20:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FN 3: formatting
Mixture of templated and untemplated citations is causing formatting inconsistencies. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean. If you are referring to the fire department report I don't think its' neccesary to give the full citation including the URL for each subsequent ref. Just like book citations often just mention the name of the author and page number for subsequent refs. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 20:41, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, primarily on 1a. The writing is not up to the required standard. Random examples of prose issues:

"a multistory hotel in the centre of the city built in 1891" The modifying phrase "built in 1891" is misplaced and confuses the meaning of the clause.
The mention of the furniture store highlights a need for clarity in the previous clauses; you should avoid discussion the "hotel" as a building and the "Hotel" as a business interchangeably.
"Many of the hotel's tourists" reads as if they were tourists of the hotel. Or were they guests?

Fixed: Changed it to: "Many of the tourists who stayed at the hotel"

"At the end of the 18th century, the "Poolsche Koffiehuis" (English: Polish Coffee House) was established, which began offering guest accommodation in 1857." Another misplaced modifying phrase.
"The Hotel Polen was once known as a fashionable place to stay." This sentence is out of place in the narrative. The cafe opened, the hotel was a fashionable place to stay, the cafe closed.

The cafe closed because the hotel became run down as the owners didn't want to spend much money on it. The cafe closed in 1974 which is mentioned on page 5 of the fire department report. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 23:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"There were only 10 fire extinguishers and 11 fire hoses in the hotel." Another narrative problem. The "only" qualifier doesn't make much sense without context. We don't even know how many floors are in the building at this point. Is that number of extinguishers and hoses low for a building of that size?

The building that replaced it, the Rokin Plaza has 5,086 m2 office space (although the smaller building on the right which survived the fire was demolished to make room for it.) It was quite a large building so 2 fire extinguishers and fire hoses per floor does seem sparse. I did remove the word only. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 23:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, you don't mention the number of floors anywhere that I can see. Nothing should be in the infobox that's not in the article.

Fixed

"the hotel was also not on a direct line with the emergency centre of the fire department" What does this mean?

A direct telephone line ie like the Moscow–Washington hotline. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 23:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I only read through Background, but this looks to require substantive work to bring it up to FA standards. Recommend withdrawal so you can work with a copyeditor. I would also recommend additional research; the narrative after the fire is extremely sparse. --Laser brain (talk) 22:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I did ask for help by several experienced copy editors who rewrote the text. It's pretty hard to come by additional sources, I only know of one study which covers the fire but is only available at university libraries and I'm not a student or lecturer so I probably can't access it. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 23:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can't speak to the quality of copyedits you received before, but I think you will need someone to help you dig a bit deeper. Lots of issues were missed. I thought we had a page of volunteers who could help you access library sources, but I can't find it now. --Laser brain (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RX. - Sitush (talk) 17:30, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Templates removed, per FAC page instruction. Brianboulton (talk)

Oppose on 1a, prose, per Laserbrain, and per this sample which was the first my eyes fell on:
Just before 7:00 a.m. the part of the hotel which lied on the Kalverstraat collapsed.[21] The burning debris landed on the fire engine in the Kalverstraat, and the fire fighters barely escaped to safety. The nearby book store was also burned out[22] and fires broke out in several buildings on the other side of the Kalverstraat, which were quickly brought under control.[21]
The prose needs to be reworked thoroughly, and it's unclear to me that it attains GA level. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I reluctantly withdraw the nomination. Thanks for your input. S_peakF_ree ^(talk)_(contribs) 18:44, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.