Talk:D. H. Turner/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 15:32, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

This sounds very interesting; happy to offer a review. Josh Milburn (talk) 15:32, 5 May 2018 (UTC)


 * "on English Gothic and European Romanesque illumination" Links?
 * Linked to Gothic art and Romanesque art.


 * I wonder if it is worth including categories for his teaching positions? It would definitely be worth including Category:Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford and Category:People educated at Harrow School. I also wonder if some subcategories of Category:Museum people or Category:Librarians might be useful additions. Category:People from Northampton, too. Category:English art historians?
 * Added the particular ones you suggested, as well as Category:Academics of the University of Cambridge, Category:Academics of the University of East Anglia, and Category:English librarians. Was going to add something in Category:Curators (subcategory of Category:Museum people), but Category:English librarians is already a subcategory of that.


 * I wouldn't bother including publishers for journal articles, but, if you do, you should do it consistently.
 * I've added what I can for now. That leaves six without, which I'll continue to attempt to find (still trying to track down all the articles).


 * I'm not keen on the choice to treat Turner's publication list as part of this article's bibliography; I don't think there's anything wrong with repeating citations, once as part of the article, and once as part of the bibliography!
 * Are you referring to how Brown, Meredith-Owens & Turner 1961, and Backhouse, Turner & Webster 1984 are in his list of publications, yet also used as sources? I'm somewhat hesitant to duplicate references, especially as only one citation is being used for information (the other two are just pointers to related publications, e.g., "a paper by Turner the following year.[1][7]", where [1] is the source of that information, and [7] points to the paper).


 * You don't need a retrieval date on the Backhouse bibliography; you're citing the printed version, meaning that the link is just a courtesy.
 * Good point, removed.


 * Do you list all of his publications? If not, it should probably be renamed "selected publications" or "major publications" or something.
 * Pretty sure it's at least the vast majority of them. There might be another in Apollo (which is one of the harder journals to track down that he has published in), and maybe some reviews, but not much. It's largely taken from the end of his obituary ("Bibliography of the Writings of D. H. Turner"), which would be the place, if any, for a definitive list to be published.


 * Am I right in thinking that he was a religious person, or was his interest purely scholarly? Do your sources mention this? (And I'm guessing that there's no mention of the cause of death? He does seem to have died very young.)
 * It's unclear. One might infer religious belief from his time at Nashdom Abbey, although his primary obituary really only reflects on that time for the ways it impacted his scholarship. Cause of death is also unknown; the inference might be that it was not natural ("tragic"/"sudden"), although it could also have been something like the sudden onset on a disease. Couldn't find anything on Ancestry either. Have been meaning to shoot an email by Leslie Webster, with whom he collaborated on an exhibition, and may ask her at some point.

That's all I have, really. This is a very nice self-contained article! If I was writing it, I might include more details of his research; what did his published work concern? What kind of influence did it have? etc. 16:14, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for taking the time to read through and comment on another of my articles, . Responses are above. I agree with you re: research and influence, though have left off for the moment because that's going to require a lot of digging into reviews and citations; his impact as a whole doesn't seem to have been addressed anywhere, so it will have to be done piecemeal. Do you think I should get into that now, or take it as a pre-FAC project (should I decide to eventually nominate it)? --Usernameunique (talk) 17:47, 5 May 2018 (UTC)
 * If you're keen on not repeating the citations, I won't push it. And if you have a published bibliography, then I think it's fair to claim that this is everything. I think that the research section is something that you can do without at this stage (the current article gives a good impression of the kinds of things he worked on, and if the obituaries don't make any "most famous for his discovery of/development of/theory that"-type statements, perhaps he's more notable for his curatorial activities than his research. It does strike me that the lead is currently a little long for an article of this length, and I confess I'm usually a little puzzled by the use of citations in the lead (when it's not a controversial subject/when you're not using direct quotes). Josh Milburn (talk) 08:01, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * , removed the citations from the lead. Pretty pointless, considering they were all to the same source. Did some rudimentary calculations based on the four articles I've seen through to FA (letters in lead divided by letters in rest of article), getting ratios of 21%, 19%, 14% and 14%. This article was at 22%, so you're right it's on the longer side (although it's the shortest lead overall). Restructured it a bit to get it down to 20%. The next things to cut down, if anything, would probably be the info about the Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander and the Moutier-Granval Bible. Let me know what you think. Those loans seem pretty cool to me, but to borrow your phrase, maybe I'm just being obtuse. --Usernameunique (talk) 09:49, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The "readable prose size" of this article is 7818 bytes (including the lead), which (according to MOS:LEADLENGTH) puts the article firmly in the "1-2 paragraphs in the lead" range. The "published work" list doesn't count towards the article length for lead purposes. Of course, all of these are just guidelines that we can ignore if preferred... Josh Milburn (talk) 14:20, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * , I tried two paragraphs (see version) but disliked the result, which seemed unbalanced and overly-long. Three short paragraphs (2, 2, and 4 sentences each) seems much more readable. For the record, if those guidelines are to be taken seriously, then my leads have been way long for every single FA. Shorwell helmet, for instance, is about 11,590 characters, but the lead is three paragraphs. --Usernameunique (talk) 21:37, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, sure; if you're happy, I'm happy. I'll promote now. Great work. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:13, 10 May 2018 (UTC)