Talk:George Mason Memorial

I will start reviewing this article. Knope7 (talk) 01:20, 2 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1. Is it well written?
   1. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
   2. It complies with the
      list incorporation
      :
      1. Some of the content in the lead section should be integrated into the article. The lead should be a summary and rarely include information not in the body of the article. The fact that weddings are permitted at the sight is more appropriate for the body of the article. Likewise, the information about George Mason as a founder should be in the article in greater detail with a shorter summary in the lead.
         1. Integrated content from the lead section into the article. I must now construct a new lead.Abel (talk) 13:38, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
         2. Constructed a new lead.Abel (talk) 16:00, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
            1. ?
2. Is it verifiable with no original research?
   1. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with
      the layout style guideline
      :
      1. As a reader, I find the reference style confusing. It looks like there are two layers of footnotes for certain references. For example, citing " Jarvis 2016b" [layer 1] which is then a link to the reference footnotes for "Jarvis, Jonathan B. (15 Feb 2016b). George Mason Memorial. Washington, DC: National Park Service" [layer 2]. It would be easier just to cite to the reference footnotes and skip the "Jarvis 2016b" explanatory footnote. I recommend using alphabetical footnotes for explanatory notes and numbers for the references. See
         WP:EXPLNOTE
         .
         1. There are two Jonathan B. Jarvis references in 2016, hence 22 March 2016a and 15 Feb 2016b. Abel (talk) 13:38, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
            1. ?
   2. All
      reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines
      :
      1. There is some inconsistency with the style. The "Location" and "History" sections have consecutive citations to the same source. Other sections do not. It is acceptable, and even encouraged, to leave out footnotes where multiple consecutive sentences cite to the same source. I would recommend using hidden citations to make sure each sentence in About is attributable to the Jarvis source.
         1. How does one make a citation hidden? Abel (talk) 22:23, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
            1. ?
   3. It contains no original research:
      1. The section on Cherry Blossoms needs work. There are currently two sources cited. One source only gives a history of Cherry Blossoms in DC and is not connected to the memorial. The second article is questionable as to whether it is part of the Cherry Blossom Festival. The Festival is only mentioned in the title of the source, not the actual body of the article.
         1. Deleted. Abel (talk) 13:38, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
            1. ?
      2. The Rehnquist remarks do not reference does not mention the memorial by name nor does it reference the memorial's location.
         1. Deleted. Abel (talk) 13:38, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
            1. ?
   4. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
      1. ?
3. Is it broad in its coverage?
   1. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:
      1. The article does a very nice job of providing a sense of what the memorial looks like. I think it is lacking in true history and in explaining why a memorial to George Mason. The lead gives a little background into Mason but I think a complete article would have an explanation of who George Mason was in the article and why the memorial is dedicated to him. There are many founding fathers and not all have memorials. Who suggested George Mason? Were there any people or groups advocating for a George Mason memorial?
         1. I can find no reliable sources that cover the information that you want. . Abel (talk) 13:38, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
            1. ?
      2. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
4. Is it
   neutral
   ?
   1. It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
5. Is it stable?
   1. It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing
      edit war
      or content dispute:
6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
   1. Images are
      copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content
      :
      1. ?
   2. Images are
      suitable captions
      :
7. Overall:
   1. Pass or Fail:
      1. I will place this article on a one week hold because there is a responsive nominator actively working to improve the article. I still have some concerns about the new section now labeled "About" as it sounds like a catch all. Perhaps splitting it up into a section about George Mason and another section about its place in the national park system, including the sentence that currently ends the "History" section would help. There are likely other approaches that could work too. I understand that the nature of this memorial means the article will be on the shorter side, however, I do think it could benefit from a little additional research. For example, one of the sources mentioned it is one of the less well known memorials. Details about how many visitors a year, etc would be appropriate. Knope7 (talk) 17:30, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
         1. Broke up About section. Abel (talk) 22:49, 6 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
            1. ?

Final comments: I apologize for the delay. While I appreciate the effort to improve the article, unfortunately the footnotes have not been sufficiently fixed. Reference 10 to Sadon, Rachel does not actually appear to be anywhere in the article. Also, having Notes and References both use numbers is confusing. I do not think the Notes or Reference sections are a good use of

WP:FNNR. Also, the article relies very heavily on literature published by the National Parks Service, which administers the site. The article for to Coleman, David links to google rather than the actual website (a small fix). That article and I few others on google suggest the garden at the memorial has been around since the early 1900s, a fact absent from the article. The Washington Post appears to have more useful articles including this one

which that the Board of Regents of Gunston Hall Plantation sponsored the memorial. While I do not expect the article to be exhaustive, I think the scope of the article should be improved based on resources that are readily available.

I do think that the section headings and organization are better than before. Best of luck continuing your progress. Knope7 (talk) 17:56, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What the hell?

Quoted from User_talk:Knope7#George_Mason_Memorial: The one week hold on the review of the George Mason Memorial seems to have turned into a two week hold. Not to rush you, but am not sure what else I can do without you evaluating the changes that I made to address concerns. Abel (talk) 03:24, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I make changes to address all the concerns that you mentioned. I wait for you to reply for two weeks. I ask you to respond to the changes. Instead of continuing the process, you fail the review. What the hell? Abel (talk) 18:13, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I explained my reasons for failing the article at the bottom of my review. You did address some of my concerns but not enough of them to make the article match the good article criteria. I pointed out the issue with the footnotes the first time and upon second review the problem had gotten worse, not better. The article is not comprehensive enough to be a good article at this time. I mention these factors in my final comments to the bottom of my review. Knope7 (talk) 18:28, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You noted concerns. I made changes to address your concerns. You ignored the article for two weeks. A reasonable person would have expected you to wait more than a fraction of one second for me to reply before failing the review given that I patiently waited two weeks for you to reply. Abel (talk) 18:41, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am under no obligation to put the review on hold multiple times. I didn't even have to do that the first time. When I looked over the article today, the footnotes were worse, which indicates the problem will not be a quick fix. Also, the research and writing required to make the article more comprehensive is not a quick fix. My giving you two weeks instead of one meant you had more time to make the article fit the good article criteria. I am sorry you are disappointed by the outcome, but I am disappointed that you are becoming argumentative. I would be happy to answer questions about why I came to my conclusion. but the accusations and incorrect characterizations need to stop. Knope7 (talk) 19:41, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

None of it is an accusation nor is any of it incorrect, which is why you are so angry. Abel (talk) 01:08, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer put the review on a one week hold. Nominator addresses all concerns. Review sat dormant for two weeks. The following was posted to Reviewer's talk page:

The one week hold on the review of the George Mason Memorial seems to have turned into a two week hold. Not to rush you, but am not sure what else I can do without you evaluating the changes that I made to address concerns. Abel (talk) 03:24, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Rather than continue the process of a review, the reviewer immediately failed the review without the nominator having any chance to make any changes. Abel (talk) 18:26, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have explained this twice on the previous assessment page. The footnotes are confusing and do not conform to the appropriate standards. The article is not comprehensive enough and relies very heavily on one source published by the entity which maintains the monument. I would encourage the nominator to read my previous comments. I did not immediately fail the article. I carefully reviewed it two weeks ago, gave the nominator a chance to improve it, then I carefully reviewed it again today. Please do not misrepresent my actions. Thank you. Knope7 (talk) 18:41, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You noted concerns. I made changes to address your concerns. You ignored the article for two weeks. A reasonable person would have expected you to wait more than a fraction of one second for me to reply before failing the review given that I patiently waited two weeks for you to reply. Abel (talk) 18:43, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You did not fix some of my concerns and I do not think the article in its current state meets the good article criteria. As a reviewer, I am permitted to fail the article if it does not meet the criteria. Knope7 (talk) 21:37, 21 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comments

Unfortunately, I don't see any chance of this being settled, and certainly not here. GAR is not the venue to get a re-review of a failed nomination; the best thing to do is simply renominate the article at GAN.

This was opened as an individual reassessment by Abel, but individual reassessments are not allowed to be opened by major contributors to the article in question. I don't advise a community reassessment: they take three to six months (or more), and are typically for current GA articles that don't seem to meet the GA criteria any longer. (The hope, in that case, is that the reassessment process will end with the article being once again at GA quality.) Also, there's rarely anyone there willing to drive a comprehensive review, which would be required.

I was puzzled by the heavy emphasis on the reference formatting in the review, though it's not an atypical first-time-reviewer thing to do, and would strongly recommend that

GAN can be a very slow process (if not as slow as the reassessments), and people often wait for months for their review to be selected. Reviewers of such articles will commonly give extra leeway—another round of corrections, or an extra week—if things aren't in order after the first round of revisions, or even the second. The hope is that the article will, with help and guidance, reach the GA standard, though if there are major hurdles that could not be solved with a week or so of work—then it makes sense to explain the issues and end the review rather than extend it.

Looking at the nominated article, it seems thin to me, such that it does not fulfill the broadness criteria for GAs. The History section, especially, is lacking information, especially about how the memorial came to be. The passage of the law is the at the end, not the beginning: whose idea, how long had it been around, did the law pass the first time or were there several attempts, was the financing for the memorial from government sources or were private monies involved, and so on. The sculptor is mentioned under History, but she should be in the Sculpture section, along with details on how long it took, artistic methods and her source image(s), the material used in the sculpture, and what kind of stone used elsewhere in the memorial, etc. The Inscriptions section should use blockquotes for the individual inscriptions; there's also a disconnect between the initial sentences and the image, since the one is talking about them being on walls under a trellis, but the image is of stone slabs in the ground. To my eye, this is currently a C-class article; I'll be changing the article's talk page accordingly. I hope I've given some pointers to how the article can be expanded and improved.

Abel, feel free to follow this advice from the GAN instructions: If you believe that you did not receive an adequate review, you may renominate the article immediately. But I would advise you to do some work on the article first based on what I noted above.

Knope7, you still need to properly close your review, assuming you don't want to reconsider resuming it; at this moment, it still shows as active on the

I'm happy to keep this open for a few questions, if there are any, but plan to close the page in a day or two, since this can't be an individual reassessment per

Thank you for your comments, BlueMoonset. I have tried again to properly close the article review. I will not be further reviewing the article because I do not feel like it would be productive. I am once again disappointed that the nominator became combative so quickly. I would just like to note that I am aware that not all formatting needs to be perfect and I had read the suggested materials previously, however I found the footnotes in the article to be particularly muddled and frankly nonsensical having two sets of footnotes using the same set of numbers. To me, as a reader of Wikipedia that was worth pointing out as something needing improvement. What made me fail the article rather than suggesting it be fixed is that it had not been expanded in key areas I was confident based on my own research that more comprehensive material is readily available. I had mentioned some key questions I still had from the initial review and those were not addressed. Knope7 (talk) 00:33, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you BlueMoonset. Did not know that individual reassessments are not allowed to be opened by major contributors to the article. I will be happy to make the changes that you recommend. The point of the reassessment request is that there was no second round. There was an initial review. Changes were made. While waiting for a reply to the changes the review was failed. Did not even bring up all the points in the review that are not a part of the review criteria, only that the only reply to the changes made was a failed review. Reviews are supposed to be collaborative not summary decisions. Abel (talk) 01:20, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The "frankly nonsensical" is just a citation style that you are not familiar with. Abel (talk) 01:24, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Knope7, thank you for your reply. I've updated the article talk page and the review page; for the former, you didn't include values for the page and topic parameters, both of which are required, and I've removed the FailedGA template entirely from the review page, restoring the template that had been there (and needs to stay).

WP:CITEVAR

is alive and well, and the only real requirement at the GA level is that there is some consistency involved. Another way is to have "Notes", "References", and "Bibliography", splitting the first two sections into commentary-style notes in the former (which require a differentiating citation format) and inline source citations in the latter.

Reviews are collaborative up to a point, but the ultimate decision is the reviewer's. It's one of the good/bad things about GA reviews: there can be any amount of input, but it's entirely up to the reviewer what to pay attention to and how much leeway is appropriate. Perhaps there could have been a better explanation of the reason the nomination was failed—starting with the issue that the broadness criterion still had not been met rather than leading with the citations. However, the requested additional information was not added to the article, which I can see as indicating that the article would not attain the required "broadness": even if there isn't additional information to be readily found, if the article is insufficiently broad, it won't qualify as a GA. Many articles are like this: because there isn't sufficient information available, the article simply cannot progress beyond a certain point. I can understand why Knope7 decided to close the nomination.

When you continue working on the article, the reliance on primary sourcing is something you'll want to address, since it will likely be an issue in a subsequent review: there does need to be more from secondary sources rather than relying too heavily on the National Park Service. Best of luck going forward. BlueMoonset (talk) 02:28, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]