Talk:Manistee Watch Company/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 02:13, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Extremely disorganized: basically a big lump of text in a "history" section, with almost nothing else, and within that section a collection of isolated sentences in a seemingly-random order with paragraph breaks added at seemingly-random points between some of the sentences. Information is in the wrong order: for instance we learn that the watches were shipped "about 30 miles away" before learning where they were shipped from. Although the "Legacy" section is short, only the first two of its seven sentences make sense for that section.

Self-contradictory: a sentence early in the history says that "some" of the movements were jeweled, while a different sentence later classifies the movements by numbers of jewels implying that all were jeweled. A sentence early in the history says that the watches were cased by "other companies", while a sentence in another paragraph says they were cased by one specific company. The lead says "a range of prices" while later we learn "five dollars each".

Vague: "other companies", "other inexpensive watches on the market". "16 and 18 size": in what units? "Disagreements arose": when? "Business people from Chicago": who? "Placed in a location": really? How would you place a factory so that it was not in a location? "two businessmen": who?

Peacock and largely content-free: "specialized one-of-a-kind" "specifically to the correct dimensions". "Tiny parts of the watch mechanisms": are any parts of watch mechanisms not tiny? Anti-peacock: "low quality".

Overly detailed: Why do we need to know the names of the factory directors? The layout of the factory? The existence of a nearby lake? The fact that the only wood in the factory was in its window frames? The invention date and inventor of the specific brand of concrete used to build it? Relatedly, the "Notes" section is mostly a quote farm of long off-topic quotes that, if they were not so old, would be a copyvio.

Original research and sourcing issues: We are not told what the alloy is, in the article or the quote from its source, so how do we know that it "did not involve a ferrous material"? And what is the point of the circumlocution "ferrous material" for iron? The Ford Collections reference is a deadlink, and when tracked down turns out to source only the second sentence of the legacy section; the first sentence is unsourced. The claim that a later occupant made kilns is contradicted by its source, which says that they were looking to purchase kilns. The claim that A. D. Joslin made machine tools is not supported by its source, and it is certainly not true that the building became the company as the current text states. Much of the sourcing is to primary legal documents rather than secondary sourcing, dubious by WP:RSPRIMARY. The claim that "The sales of the watches had slowed and there were insufficient funds for Rath to make his required payments to Bachner" is sourced to one of these legal documents, which appears to be entirely about a different agreement between Rath and Bachner with the city and says nothing about sales rates or payments from Rath to Bachner.

The gallery of tiny uncaptioned pictures of watches conveys no useful information to the viewer and fails WP:NOTGALLERY. And two of the images when expanded turn out to be badly blurred.

Overall I think this is very far from WP:GACR #1 (prose quality and organization) and #3b (avoidance of unnecessary detail), and has significant problems with #2 (sourcing) and #6 (image captioning and relevance). It does appear to be neutral and stable, but that's not enough to save it. I think it is a quick fail. I would rate it as C-class at best. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:38, 5 December 2020 (UTC)