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

The article was kept by Nikkimaria 20:00, 18 September 2011 [1].

Felice Beato[edit]

Notified: Pinkville, Biography, History of photography, Japan, China

I am nominating this featured article for review because for its failure of 1.c, as sections like "Japan" and "Later Years" are unreferenced. Also, there should be a removal of the "Selected photographs" as its irrelevant. GamerPro64 20:01, 18 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Question/request. When you say that there should be a removal of the "Selected photographs" as its irrelevant, do you mean that photographs by Beato are irrelevant to Beato? If you do mean this, I am somewhat surprised; please explain how it is that photographs by somebody whose (perhaps minor) fame rests on his photography are irrelevant to that person. If instead you mean something else, please explain what it is that you do mean. -- Hoary (talk) 00:09, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    What I meant is that the section is very trivial. I don't understand why there should be a section about certain pictures Beato took in his career. GamerPro64 20:24, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course I know what "trivial" means in normal, Wikipedia-unrelated English. And of course some words have radically different meanings within and outside Wikipedia. ("Notability" is a glaring example.) So, thinking I should bone up on the WP-specific meaning of "trivia(l)", I clicked on the link you provided -- and was taken to "Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions". Ummm? Are you saying that the actual photographs by somebody known as a photographer are trivial, or that these are trivial examples among his works, or that the descriptions of them trivialize them, or what? -- Hoary (talk) 00:31, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake. I meant to link this. The section just seems trivial as it just has links to pictures that only shows what pictures Beato took. If someone would like to see pictures Beato took, they could see the ones already on the page. GamerPro64 01:17, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with GamerPro, and i would favor a deletion of the "selected photographs" part. Photographs should be shown into the article itself, some links are even dead...--Narayan (talk) 18:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes indeed, if people want to see what pictures Beato took, they could see the ones that are already on the page. We shouldn't worry their little heads with any others that aren't on the page. I've removed the offending section. Is there anything else that should be cut from this article? -- Hoary (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, its good. But the main concern is that there needs to be more referencing in the article, including the sections I mentioned before. Also, red-links need to be gone and this File:PrinceGong1.jpg should be moved somewhere else, like the left side. GamerPro64 01:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there indeed needs to be more referencing in the article. Or rather, more precise referencing. I'm pretty sure that all the material in the article appears in the (sufficiently authoritative) sources listed at its foot, but all of this was done (mostly by Pinkville) back in the dark ages of WP, before we all realized that every damn clause had to be specifically linked to this or that specific source. Pinkville then had access to a splendid library of material about C19 photography but I don't think that he still does; for whatever reason, his interest in this area seems to have diminished to defending his articles against vandalism and stupidity. Meanwhile, I have access to a grand total of one (1) large and authoritative book about C19 photography in Japan, so time permitting I may be able to help there. I have access to next to nothing about C19 photography anywhere else (e.g. China) that's of concern to this article. ¶ Red links are indeed ugly, but I did not know that they should be gone. (Should I reread the sometimes nutty FA requirements?) ¶ Feel free to move File:PrinceGong1.jpg where you think it belongs. -- Hoary (talk) 02:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Red links are not part of the FA criteria and do not need to be removed just because they are there. If they are to non-notable people/organizations, etc, they should be removed, or if they are excessive, but in this case, I think I only saw two or three and they looked to be reasonable. Dana boomer (talk) 15:47, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, you're right. That was irrelevant for me to mention red links. I'm just gonna strike out that part of my comment. GamerPro64 16:01, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Can we get an update on how this work is going? GamerPro, have your concerns been addressed? Does anyone feel this can be kept without a FARC, or should it be moved to the next stage? Thanks, Dana boomer (talk) 13:29, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you demand that assertions in the article are each matched with individual sources, then this article will need many more footnotes, which can only be produced by somebody willing to spend a lot of time in a library which (unlike most university libraries, let alone municipal libraries) has a good supply of books on photographic history. I have only ever encountered one Wikipedia editor who had both access to such a library and the interest to do this kind of work: Pinkville. But that was some years ago; since then, Pinkville seems to have lost interest in the subject area, or access to the library, or both. ¶ I am no expert in 19th century photography but I have some interest in it. Moreover, one hour from where I live is a library that will have several of the books that were used and are cited. In August, I should have some time to go to the library, but not in July. -- Hoary (talk) 14:03, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Its good to know that it may be possible for more references to be found to address the concerns I made. However, I think that this review should go to the next stage soon as such concerns hasn't been addressed. GamerPro64 02:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your concerns at the start (with my numbers added): [1] its failure of 1.c, as sections like "Japan" and "Later Years" are unreferenced. Also, [2] there should be a removal of the "Selected photographs" as its irrelevant. Later: [1a] the main concern is that there needs to be more referencing in the article, including the sections I mentioned before. Also, [3] File:PrinceGong1.jpg should be moved somewhere else, like the left side. ¶ (1) The section "Japan" has plenty of references, though it should have more. The section "Later years" is still unreferenced. (Can you help here? I'm busy till August.) (2) The section "Selected photographs" has been removed. (3) If you want a graphic moved somewhere, then please move it. -- Hoary (talk) 10:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update? Should this article be moved to FARC at this time? Have sufficient improvements been made or is more work needed? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:55, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I saw some more citations added to the article but it needs more since there's some information missing references. So I think it should be at FARC now. GamerPro64 16:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Article when nominated back in June, 16 footnotes; article on 8 August, 24 footnotes; article now, 47 footnotes. Mere numbers say little, of course, but they should indicate that editors have been at work on this and that the article hasn't stood still. During the next 48 hours or so, I hope to do more sourcing, but I don't yet know how much material will be available in the library that I'll visit. -- Hoary (talk) 00:26, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Updated update: Article now, 62 footnotes. I have now exhausted the [visible] capabilities of the better library at my disposal. There certainly won't be much in a second library, but it might have additional odds and sods; however, I shan't have time to investigate there or do much else till late September. -- Hoary (talk) 04:30, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brad101 issues resolved. Brad (talk) 20:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments This is the first time I've looked at the article and I see problems:

  • All of the photos currently in the article are incorrectly licensed. They don't even contain a US copyright tag which is required to host them on commons. I can try and help to fix these but the licensing must be top notch for FA's. Also read MOS:Images for layout. WP:ALT is recommended.
  • See WP:LEAD, one para seems a bit short.
  • There are still uncited passages in the article. If Hoary claims above that his references are exhausted then uncited text should be removed. Brad (talk) 04:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
First, thank you for your interest in this article.
[The photos] don't even contain a US copyright tag: with this word even, you imply that there are other problems, but it's not immediately obvious what these are. Anyway, I have attached PD-US to File:Upper North Taku Fort.jpg, but am not immediately able to say which tag (if either) can be applied to:
To do this, I'm going to have to look in websites and libraries. Again.
This time two days from now, I shall be in a plane somewhere over Russia; I don't have time to do this work before I leave, and my vacation (of less than three weeks) will also, I hope, be a vacation from the interwebs.
Also read MOS:Images for layout. I've just now skimread it. Before skimreading it I noticed no layout problem, and when I skimread it I didn't notice any (pseudo-) problem. A long time ago, GamerPro64 did write above: File:PrinceGong1.jpg should be moved somewhere else, like the left side. No reasoning was given, and moving it to the left would sandwich text, which is something that MOS rules against. I replied If you want a graphic moved somewhere, then please move it. There was no response to this.
WP:ALT is recommended Yes, this is one clearly relevant thing that MOS:IMAGES says. It sounds like a lot of work, if it's to be done in a way that's genuinely helpful. I'm willing to do some of this work, but only for images that I'm sure can stay. So the copyright stuff should be attended to first.
See WP:LEAD, one para seems a bit short. There's nothing more that I immediately want to say. Perhaps I'll think of something later, but I'm not going to expand it for the sake of expansion.
There are still uncited passages in the article. If Hoary claims above that his references are exhausted then uncited text should be removed. A few minutes ago, I did this. Occasional uncited sentences and clauses may linger; you are free to cut these. -- Hoary (talk) 09:02, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will work on the image licensing. A lot of these will be fairly easy because Beato died in 1909 meaning that it's been over 100 years since his death. I don't understand where the idea came from to use the PD-art tag but it wasn't and isn't correct. File:PrinceGong1.jpg may just have to be removed from the article as there is limited space available. Thanks for removing the uncited text. Brad (talk) 21:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your helpful offer. As the article says (or ought to say), Beato published a lot of his work during his lifetime, which as you pointed out conveniently ended over a hundred years ago. These published albums are now rare and valuable; they'd only be accessible in the rare books room of a tiny few libraries, none of them anywhere close to me. And I haven't seen or heard of any Errata-style reproductions of any of the albums as a whole. Few of the books that reproduce his photographs bother to say where these photographs first appeared, and indeed many of the reproductions are pointedly made by museums, etc directly from 19th-century prints in their possession. Still, some of the relevant catalogues (which are conveniently listed under "External links" seem to provide a lot of other information, which may include details of earlier appearances in books, etc. (Sorry but I cannot think of starting on this work until mid September.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:26, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed all of the licensing and removed the Prince Gong photo. ALT text is not difficult to do. You just need to explain what the photo is showing. An example of what I added to the top pic. Excessive detail is not needed. Brad (talk) 03:20, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thank you. But the speed with which you fixed the licensing problems goes to show that you work at a superhuman rate, or that I have no real idea of the issue here, or both. (I'd thought that I had to show that the photograph was published -- and not merely printed and left somewhere -- either within the US by/before 1923 or outside the US by/before 1923.) Time permitting, I'll look again at ALT text within the next ten hours. -- Hoary (talk) 04:03, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment At this point I don't see any strong reason why this should continue on to FARC. Hoary did a lot of work and there are just a few rough edges left over. I did request a copyedit from GOCE. Brad (talk) 21:29, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • It still seems really short. As I said, is there any more that could be said on his impact? That sentence is a whopping TWO sentences. Expand it or merge it. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 04:49, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have done done copy editing and fixes to the references and notes. Regards, --Dianna (talk) 05:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I eliminated the short section about impact if that's what you were referring to. Diannaa did a great job with copyediting and the article no longer reads "essayish" as I saw it. As for the length of the article overall a lot of passages were removed by Hoary because he could not reference them. Hoary claims the sources available to him have been exhausted and I have no reason to not believe that. If the article isn't up to standards (I believe that it is) then I guess we wait for Hoary to return from his holiday. Brad (talk) 09:48, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Going through the entire article, I now believe that its up to FA standards. So I don't think it going to FARC is necessary. GamerPro64 20:47, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm back. Several people have edited the article in my absence, and although I might make one or two quibbles the article seems to have been improved. So good, thank you all. Above, people seem unenthusiastic but satisfied. Yet the article's talk page still tells the reader This article is undergoing a featured article review. [...] Please feel free to leave comments and/or be bold and improve the article directly. So what needs to be done? ¶ Incidentally, I suspect that quite a bit of the material that wasn't specifically sourced (and which I therefore dumped into the talk page) comes from Terry Bennett's Early Japanese Images; does any of you have access to a copy? -- Hoary (talk) 09:05, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing to be worried about if this review is still going on. So far its been very productive with improving the article and keeping it featured. I can get a copy of the book you mention but I have to request it via a statewide network as there are no local copies here. Statewide requests can take a few weeks to deliver. Brad (talk) 12:45, 14 September 2011 (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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