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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 SandyGeorgia 03:48, 4 April 2009 [1].

Fountain of Time

[edit]
Nominator(s): TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because of my A-Class WP:MILHIST articles, this passed in the shortest amount of time. Thus, it is probably interesting or something. It is the only high quality level WP article that I know of that is about a memorial to peace. In order to answer a question from my GA reviewer Chzz (talk · contribs), I got two books from the library. I was unable to answer the question, but did end up adding 25% more text to the article and I found several old Library of Congress photos in the mean time.

I am quite sure the image guys will have instructions in regard to what is kept in the article. I was going to move out the gallery and then the GA reviewer said he felt they added to the article, but needed better captioning. I am thinking that the image reviewers might want them moved out so I have not worked on that. I am hoping that none of the images other than the gallery are contentious and am willing to make any changes to the gallery or remove it entirely. TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WRT, the image gallery, I should note that because of the restoration, this might be a rare case where it is appropriate to have one.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:36, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There remains one dab (Open house) that I am not sure how to resolve. It describes what I mean in the opening sentence and then lists another dozen possible uses for the term.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Query Hi Tony, interesting topic "Despite all the restoration that has been completed, supporters of Time continue to pursue resources for additional lighting," what has the lighting to do with restoration? ϢereSpielChequers 22:13, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also "Time is one of the few outdoor sculptures that has been made of these types of materials since the 1930s" might need rephrasing if the opening date of 1922 is correct. ϢereSpielChequers 22:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • This is a big public sculpture and I think the article could benefit from a bit about the vistas that incorporate it (which might be a way to move some gallery pictures into the article). How much of the Park around it is designed to show off this monument, and which bits are meant to be seen up close and which from a distance? ϢereSpielChequers 15:57, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Technical Review

Is anyone else having problems with the newsbank refs. They got reformatted with these two edits. They are no longer working on my machine even though they did when I first checked out what had happened.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:25, 24 March 2009 (UTC) [reply]

The links were not working earlier, but they are working now.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:39, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose I'm opposing because I think the prose is not FA quality, and there's some MOS issues to be addressed (eg. page # ranges in refs need endashes). I've listed some examples below, but stopped reading after the Installation section. Sasata (talk) 08:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support The prose has been much improved, and I'm switching to support now. I'll take Tony's word about the lead citation issue, but am not striking it out, as I'd still like to hear an MOS expert's opinion about it. Sasata (talk) 21:19, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Is it appropriate to have so many (I counted 19) citations in the lede?
    • I don't think the Lead is presenting anything more than the summary of the article and thus the text is good, IMO. Are there facts that you would like to see the citations removed from?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 08:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Assuming that everything that's cited in the lead is also cited in the main body of text, then I would take out the citations for anything that isn't contentious. For example, its location, when it started running water and its year of dedication, and the fact it underwent repairs; I doubt if any of that is likely to be challenged. The rest can probably stay. Sasata (talk) 09:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Are you aware of the two citation conventions for the WP:LEAD? Either a LEAD can be fully cited or fully uncited. Both conventions are common and fully acceptable. What is unaccepatable is a partially cited LEAD where some facts are cited and some are not. In this case, I attempt to do a fullly cited form. Your suggestion is against convention. Either you want the citations with the main body text only or also as presented in the lead. There is no halfway.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • No, I was not at all aware of the two citation conventions. I was working off Wikipedia:LEADCITE; could you point out the location of a description of these alternate lead citation conventions? Thanks Sasata (talk) 16:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • There is no clear governing text where you point. Policies change and I am going by interpretations, that prevailed in 2007 and 2008. I have been asked about citing WP:LEADs several times by reviewers and given this explanation. I have never been told it is wrong. I believe it to still be the prevailing sentiment that editors agree that leads must be either fully cited or uncited. I do not have an MOS text to point to.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:56, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • So what you're saying is that there is a policy/convention for citing the lead that directly contradicts what's currently suggested in the MOS, yet I can't read about it because it's unwritten? Am I being punked? :) Sasata (talk) 08:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

←What I am saying is that in my experience with GA, FA and FL reviews on WP, which is fairly extensive, this subject has come up dozens of times. I have explained that in my early days they taught me to only do fully-cited or fully-uncited WP:LEADs. Every time that explanation has been accepted. I have not reviewed policy to give the explaination. Thus, I don't know where it is. What we need is an expert on current MOS guidelines to confirm the currently prevailing policy.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware of any convention, reason, guideline or policy to support the notion that leads should be either fully cited or fully uncited; as far as I know, this is simply incorrect. Information about citations in leads is at Wikipedia:LEAD#Citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know guidelines or policy. Generally, I spend my time adding encyclopedic content. I only learn policy through MOS tussles about my work. In terms, of convention it seems to have been longstanding and reasons are pretty clear. Suppose you have two fully cited paragraphs in a LEAD and someone plops a third uncited paragraph that further summarizes the article it looks bad. Similarly, if you have an uncited paragraph or two and someone contributes a fully cited one, it looks just as bad. Citing half the claims in the lead as necessary and the other half as unnecessary begs the question of why should the uncited half be cited in the main body either.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 16:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*"Time had to undergo several restorations due to the elements" What elements? I think this is a too-informal way to say "weathering"

*"Originally conceived in granite,[14] Time had another plan that called for it to be chiseled out of Georgia marble..." Anthropomorphizing the sculpture

*"... a Bridge of Arts at Woodlawn Avenue would have been more elaborate than a Bridge of Religion at the intersection of Ellis Avenue and a Bridge of Science at Madison Avenue." I'm confused about the relevance of the elaborateness of these bridges; were these bridges even made?

*"...Taft began lobbying for a grand Midway beautification plan in 1908 immediately after winning the first commission from the Ferguson Fund to create the Fountain of the Great Lakes, ..." This clause in the middle of a longer sentence is dificult to follow and should be broken up into something more digestible.

*"Two surviving elements stand outside the entrance to the Main Library and two others are at the south side of Foellinger Auditorium." Confusing - there are four "elements" in total, two are not surviving, but two are? What's the distinction between the surviving and non-surviving elements?

*"...was delayed by Taft's World War I service in France with the Y.M.C.A.," Sorry, but I don't know enough about history to make a logical connection between war service and the YMCA

*"However, Taft and his Chicago school of sculpture..." What school was this? (Sorry if I seem deliberately disingenuous, but that's the question that intuitively pops to mind when I read that sentence)

  • "Another notable sculpture nearby is Henry Moore's National Historic Landmark, National Register of Historic Places-listed, Chicago Landmark Nuclear Energy, which is located..." Jarring constructing construction, does not flow smoothly.

*"Formerly, The Midway Plaisance, Jackson Park and..." Does the "The" really need to be capitalized?

  • "There is little agreement on the dimensions of Time, with various sources describing it at 102 to 127 feet (31.1 to 38.7 m) long.[10][3][12] One of the few precise estimates describes it as 126 feet 10 inches (38.7 m) long, 23 feet 6 inches (7.2 m) wide and 24 feet (7.3 m) tall.[2]" Why is there little agreement on something which can be measured with a tape measure? What makes the latter measurement more precise?
    • I suppose that there are at least four or five ways to measure the width:
      1. The width of the reflecting pool, which probably could be measured by the width of the water (interior width) and the width of its physical structure (exterior width)
      2. The width of the base of its figures
      3. The width of the sculpting of the figures
      4. The width of the ground upon which it is laid.
        1. Suppose there is a three foot-wide ring of grass around the sculpture which is considered Fountain land.
        2. Suppose that there is an official plot of land that contains the fountain that the Cook County assessors office might describe as a parcel or something.

This is my best guess. I have seen this problem with other sculptures such as the near by Nuclear Energy (Henry Moore sculpture). I have also had articles where I was able to get specific dimensions for separate parts such as Crown Fountain where I was able to get dimensions for the reflecting pool and the physical sculpture separately. Here separate measures do not present themselves in the sources.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 15:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*It's still plural. Sasata (talk) 08:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing review: (Starting from "Design" section)

  • "John Early of Washington, DC determined that by crushing pebbles, he could create a new concrete mixture that was more durable..." How about something like "John Early of Washington, DC determined that by adding crushed pebbles, he could create a new concrete aggregate that was more durable..."
  • "It was produced in the period following his assignment to design sculptures for William Le Baron Jenney's Horticultural Building when he designed several large-scale public works, including Fountain of the Great Lakes." The sentence seems run-on, please reword, or split into two sentences.
  • "Designed without expansion joints, Time is one of the few outdoor sculptures that has been made of these types of materials, and few have been created since the 1930s." What types of materials? The pebble/concrete aggregate? Please clarify. What kind of repairs were needed in 1936 (i.e., did the sculpture really deteriorate that much in 14 years?)
  • "In early 1997, after almost two decades of study," What were they studying? Wasn't the holdup due to lack of funds?

"Below are pictures of the Fountain of Time uploaded in August 2004 before restoration."

*Reference formatting needs some more tweaking: some books refs (eg. #28, #32) end in periods, some don't; ref 15 has double period after author name; Taft refs do not have "p." while the other book refs do.

Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:48, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the ref.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose—Not well-written. MoS breaches in the linking of dictionary terms. In addition, the nominator continues his established practice of fighting against almost all issues raised. This article, by no stretch of the imagination, could be promoted. Is the whole text going to be fixed up? I have provided only random examples. Tony (talk) 15:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Gawky four-item hyphenated hedgehog: I've commented on this before in your writing, and gone to some lengths to explain how easy it is to avoid. Here we have it right at the opening: "a 126-foot-10-inch (38.7 m) long sculpture by Lorado Taft situated at the western edge of the Midway Plaisance". Here is how you fix it, by simply moving the noun: "a sculpture by Lorado Taft, 126 feet, 10 inches (38.7 m) long, at the western edge of ...". Or choose your own recasting, but no quadruple bypasses, please, especially since the conversion is required in the midddle. Here's another: "20-foot (6.1 m) high robed model of Father Time". Please fix them all. You seem to be hooked on this word "situated", but a statue is a statue, and it just is where you say it is. "Situated" is quite redundant; clunky, actually.
  • "was the first work of art made of concrete,[7] and used a new type of molded, reinforced material". The linking of "concrete" is on the boundary of the required relevance test, but since the text is not massively overlinked with dictionary words, it works, I think, and there's some slight chance that a reader might click on it. But is the "material" referred to the concrete? It's unclear.
  • "that corrected many of the problems caused by prior restorations." Please remove "prior", since it's pretty hard to correct something that hasn't already occurred.
  • "caused by the natural elements such as weather"—what other natural elements are there? Why not just "by exposure to the weather", or something like that?
    • Here is a sentence fragment from the restoration section: "Five workers began repairing the cracks, killing biological growth, removing calcium deposits and pollution-blackened gypsum" I had thought that weather and time (or in the case of this fountain Mother Nature and Father Time) are conjointly considered natural elements. As such corrosion that occurs over time is considered the result of the natural elements. Later in the article I describe urban soot and grime as natural elements. Also, note that WP redirects to (Periodic table), so it is not clear to me that natural elements means weather.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:21, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "During the late 1990s and first few years of the 21st century"—"the" is missing.
  • "Despite all the restoration that has been completed, supporters of Time continue to pursue resources for additional lighting, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation has nominated it for further funding." How does one "pursue resources"? It's not English. The National Trust nomination was despite the restoration? The clauses in this sentence need to be rearranged so they're unambiguous in relation to each other.
  • Overlinking: "intersection". This is a breach of the guidelines, by any stretch of the imagination. The overlinking is not at the ruinous density I've seen before, but here it is: "lagoon", "canal", etc. Just why you'd want to click on a link to "World War I" from this article is beyond me. Let the important links show up, please.
  • Mea culpa; during GA review, I asked that intersection be wikilinked. As a Brit, I felt the term sufficiently obscure to warrant a wikilink for clarification. The word is not common in the UK.  Chzz  ►  06:07, 31 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • You find them "linkable" because it "borders" on some WIkiProject? That is not the test of whether the link deepens the reader's meaning. This is overlinking—dictionary terms—and is clearly a breach of the style guides. Tony (talk) 15:57, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Allow me to clarify. The article has a lot of encyclopedic information related to urban planning and beautification. Thus, readers with urban planning interests may find this article worth reading. For those readers lagoons and canals are not tangential terms. They are central to the proposed urban beautification plan. I feel in this context linking the terms is O.K.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:39, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The finished portions of Fountain of Creation are considered Taft's final work, and were given to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, his alma mater." What does "are considered" add? If it is necessary to inject a little uncertainty, make it clear why. This comes over as coy.
  • "The figures in the sculpture were planned to depict the Greek legend of the repopulation of earth after the great flood." They were planned to, but didn't end up doing this? That is the unfortunate tinge of meaning. I had to read it twice and think before realising that you probably didn't intend this nuance. Not good. Same for "possible themes"; I have to work hard to fathom whether these bit the dust or were borne out. Planning versus constructed features is blurred in a number of sentences.
  • " Two surviving elements stand outside the entrance to the Main Library and two other surviving elements are at the south side of Foellinger Auditorium.[23] The four figures range in height from"—Can we avoid the straight repetition of "surviving elements"? Can we know first that there are four, and then ... "Two are ..., and two are ..."?

I've not read more than the lead and some of the first section. It all needs treatment. On the other hand, it has the makings of an FA, and I can see the effort you've put into this (and the good results). But it can't be promoted until the writing is up to scratch. Please bring in someone else to sift through the text. You have a lot of valuable things to say, but you don't do justice to your knowledge without collaboration with a skilled writer. Tony (talk) 13:02, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We've covered this hyphenation issue many times on TTT's previous FACs, so shouldn't still be finding these kinds of errors in the first line of the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:28, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose This needs a thorough copyedit. Minor issues include a quote in italics; a poem title in italics; a publication title in plain text; Jstor listed as a publisher; and National Trust and American Express listed in italics. Conversion figures are needed for historical monetary values. There are flow problems (there is no connection between these sentences: "The sculpture had a rededication in 1966. However, early repair crews often did more harm than good with techniques such as sandblasting and patching cracks with rigid materials.") and logic problems (all NHLs are listed on the NRHP, so why "Time is located a few blocks from Taft's studio, the National Historic Landmark, National Register of Historic Places-listed, Chicago Landmark Lorado Taft Midway Studios, which is located at 60th Street and Ingleside Avenue. Another notable sculpture nearby is Henry Moore's National Historic Landmark Nuclear Energy, listed with the National Register of Historic Places."?). The Chicago Tribune is arguably not a reliable source for the massive assertion that this piece is "the first work of art made of concrete", later restated as "the first finished art piece to be made of any type of concrete". The main issue, however, is that there are grammar and word choice problems throughout. Maralia (talk) 15:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The publication title in plain text is in "Some Tribune critics". RE the monetary conversion issue, I don't have time to dig for policy at the moment, so let's just use a little logic: the average reader likely has no point of reference for the equivalent modern value of early 20th-century dollar figures. FAs have long offered such conversion by giving a modern value as of a specific year; {{Inflation}} even offers a country-specific conversion that automatically updates with the CPI. The "$30,000 per year for five years" figure for Taft's initial plan is (very roughly) $5.1 million in modern terms—surely more meaningful to readers. Maralia (talk) 17:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
{{Inflation}} is an interesting template. Feel free to tweak or advise on stylistics of use. Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 19:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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