Wikipedia:Peer review/St. Mary's Church (Albany, New York)/archive1

This peer review discussion is closed.

St. Mary's Church (Albany, New York)

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This peer review discussion is closed.

I've listed this article for peer review because, as usual, I think it's a good candidate for GA and I want to get some outside perspective on what improvements it might need.

Thanks, Daniel Case (talk) 17:58, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, Daniel. Thanks for the opportunity to review the article. Since you are prepping for GA, I will use their guidelines as a rough outline for my review. I will place Completed at the top of each section as I complete it; I figure I should be done with the initial review by Tuesday. Feel free to offer any comments or questions as needed. - Pax Verbum 20:25, 11 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome ... sorry I didn't acknowledge this for almost a week. I've been busy working on another article, that, like so many others I start, I thought was going to be relatively short ... now it's more than 100K long (but I'm near the end. Honest!) So I might not be able to attend to this just yet. But all the same I very much appreciate that you have gone to these lengths ... it's been about five PRs since I got a response of any kind). Daniel Case (talk) 20:06, 17 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Final comments: Hi Daniel Case - I have completed my review of the article. Through the process, I did a bit of copy-editing and you can find my particular comments below. Overall, I think the article looks good and will do well over at GAN. Stepping back and looking at it as a whole now, I can definitely say that my final comment in the images section should be considered. The history section is thorough, but it comes close to becoming a bit long without any breaks. The information provided in the article is very approachable and informative and it looks like some good research has been completed. Well done!

Again, if there is anything I can do, please let me know. I'll keep an eye on this page for a while in case you have any questions, and of course you can always ping me. -Pax Verbum 06:37, 16 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well-written

Completed

~~I may do a bit of copy-editing as I go through the article.~~ Copy-editing done.

General comments:

Overall, I found the article a good, informative read. Some of the sentence structure became a little repetitive toward the end of the article, so I tried to adjust that as I copy-edited. Following, here are a few comments on particular sections and lines. If you have any questions, let me know!

Lead

"In 1977, St. Mary's Church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; it is also a contributing property to the Downtown Albany Historic District, listed on the Register several years later." - This one gets a bit unwieldy in terms of flow. "In 1977, St. Mary's was listed on the National...etc" and ..."listed on the Register several years later" seem to be in conflict. Are these different registers? Are they the same? If the same, the last mention of it can be omitted.

Done Took a few seconds, but I saw your point. Daniel Case (talk) 04:03, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful of using "it" too much; "It", while fine to use sparingly, can lead to a lack of clarity.
Overall, the lead is good. It gives a nice overview of the article. Just one caution for the future: the lead focuses largely on the earlier history of the church, with no mention of the later history; one or two sentences about that might be helpful.

OK, I have added a bit about the current church being the third, and some more of the building's history. Daniel Case (talk) 04:03, 18 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Building

The order of this section is interesting - exterior, bell tower, interior. To me, it seems a bit awkward, although I can't quite put my finger on it. I would move the interior to the beginning, then exterior, then bell tower. I think this is simply due to the formatting and word choice of the subsections - interior, exterior, bell tower, to me at least, seem to flow a bit better when I read them in that order. Like I said though, I think this may be a pure matter of taste and not necessarily a pressing issue for the article itself.

I see now of course that Bell tower is a subsection of Exterior. I think the observation still stands; from a reader's point of view it, just sounds a bit off. That said, I don't think it will impact GA, but thinking about some rewording or reordering might be helpful in the future.

I have in most articles about buildings put the exterior first; a lot more people are going to see it than the interior, and even those who do see a building's interior will see the exterior first unless they were unconscious when they came in for the first time. Daniel Case (talk) 06:31, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Exterior

Third paragraph: "On the outer two..." Does this refer to two bays or two arches? For those not familiar with architecture, distinguishing this might help.

Done Daniel Case (talk) 06:33, 19 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bell tower

Very good detail. A few light copy-edits were completed.

Interior

All is well here. Again, light copy-editing was completed.

History

1829-1866: "Sooner or later, the trustee system as it exists will destroy or be destroyed by the Catholic religion." - This is an orphan quote. It would be helpful if it had some sort of lead in, such as as the following: So and so states that, "Sooner or later, etc etc..."

Fixed Normally this works when this quite common way of splitting up a quote ends the graf, but here I see your point as it does not. Although I think the attribution was clear.

1867-1900: "Walworth had more to give the church." - This phrase seems, if only slightly, a bit NPOV. Maybe something like, "Walworth's influence continued after he left active ministry." or something like that...

Done Daniel Case (talk) 06:09, 20 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

1900-1937: "the church celebrated his 50 years of service to it with an altar to St. John the Baptist, Dillon's patron saint" - is this supposed to read, "Gibbon's patron saint"? If, however, this is referring to the administrator Dillon, that should be mentioned here since it's been a while since he was names. Something like, "St. John the Baptist, who was the patron saint of the administrator, John Dillon. Just to help refresh our memories.

Fixed Reworded the sentence more. Daniel Case (talk) 03:53, 21 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Verifiable

Completed

A good mix of references that seem appropriate and useful. Some issues with individual references, listed below.
Inline citations are appropriate and verifiable.
No copyright issues apparent.

Reference Issues - listed by reference number
1. 404 error - not found.

Fixed Updated to the church's website. Daniel Case (talk) 03:24, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

3. Would it be possible to provide a direct link to the search result or asset page, rather than the front page?

I am seeing if I can. That link actually predates my involvement with the article ... it made sense years ago but not now. Daniel Case (talk) 03:24, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed Daniel Case (talk) 03:26, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

4. The article uses this reference quite a bit. Not a deal-breaker for GA, but additional refs in the future might be helpful.

If I can find them, I will. The article uses all the refs that are available. Daniel Case (talk) 17:29, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

7. The ACME mapper doesn't seem to be working, at least on my end. I pulled up the link in two different browsers.

It comes through on mine just fine. Maybe it's location-specific? Daniel Case (talk) 17:29, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

15. The stations of the cross aren't loading on the Wayback archive.

The pictures aren't as necessary to what the article says as the text. Daniel Case (talk) 19:59, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

16. Some of the pictures are showing, but some are absent, as with ref. 15.

Same as above. Daniel Case (talk) 19:59, 23 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

20. This one seems to be hidden behind a paywall. If possible, it would be nice if we could find an alternate free source.

Fixed I added the archived version to get around the paywall (not a problem for me as a Times subscriber). Daniel Case (talk) 19:01, 24 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Broad in coverage

Completed The body of the article is quite thorough. Even in the places where the article extends beyond St. Mary's this is never done needlessly and it is clearly related back to the main topic.

NPOV

Completed

The article is clearly neutral. There was one instance of some possibly non-POV sounding language, but I addressed that in my comments on the prose.

Stable

Completed

The article is stable, with no edit wars or other controversial issues. PR submitter completed quite a few revisions in August, but this is to be expected in preparation for GA.

Images

Completed

Images that are present have brief, accurate captions.
Due to the significant historical focus of the article, it might be helpful to add another historical image or two to help supplement the text.

If and when I can get them, I will add them. Totally agree. Daniel Case (talk) 02:06, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Pax85: As I've addressed all your comments and made changes, would you like to take another look and see what you think? Daniel Case (talk) 02:11, 25 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Daniel Case! Thanks for the ping. I took a look and everything looks good, and I appreciate your explanations where I wasn't quite familiar with the reasoning behind some choices. I did make a couple of minor copy edits - mainly just quibbles. Overal, it looks like a good article to me! -Pax Verbum 01:36, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alright ... thanks very much for your help! I will be closing this review and nominating the article for GA soon. Daniel Case (talk) 02:17, 26 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]