Talk:Victoria and Albert Museum

Free
This museum is partially free. They have featured exhibits and you have to pay for those.

Article Way Below Par (worse than a Triple Bogey)
Hi,

I'm afraid this article is so badly written, copyvio, and structurally a disaster.

This needs a complete overhaul.

Any suggestions for improvement, before I rip it apart and start again?

Cheers Muj --ImperialCollegeGrad 21:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd go ahead. You might look at User talk:VAwebteam although i don't think they've edited the article itself. There is no "Collections of.." Category either.   Johnbod 22:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

A Start
This article is a disaster, am working on it now.

It's a good example of how not to let people get carried away with adding anything and over emphasising.

I will be pursueing a program of mass prose killing and reduction therapy on this article.

Any contributions?
 * ImperialCollegeGrad 19:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Loves Art
The V&A has signed up to the Wikipedia_Loves_Art event being planned for February 2009. If you want to help, please sign up on the page! AndrewRT(Talk) 00:24, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Details: Wikipedia Loves Art/V&A rules.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:43, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The photographs from this event are now on Commons, ready to be used! See commons:Category:Wikipedia Loves Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Mike Peel (talk) 15:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Also ready to be categorized on Commons! It's great to see such detailed info added to them though. Johnbod (talk) 16:18, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Article length
Would it make sense for the overviews of each of the separate collections of the Museum to be in separate articles so that the main article isn't quite so long? This seems quite sensible and would resolve the issue of the article being over length. Mabalu (talk) 02:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
 * For example, I see that the Cast Courts have their own page here: Cast Courts (Victoria and Albert Museum) Mabalu (talk) 02:26, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

V&A category
User:Gryffindor recently removed all but one category from this article, and put Category:Victoria and Albert Museum into the categories that he removed. This seems to make category navigation a little cryptic - if a reader starts at Category:Grade I listed buildings in London, then instead of getting this V&A article as one entry in a list of articles, they get given a link to an eleven-article V&A category, one of which is the V&A, nine of which are not listed buildings, and one of which (the Museum of Childhood) is a Grade II listed building.

Is there any consensus for this sort of category nesting, or am I just misunderstanding how categories are supposed to work? I'm not sure I see what we gain from moving all of the article's categories onto the V&A category. --McGeddon (talk) 08:18, 15 April 2011 (UTC)


 * There's a guide describing a better practice for this under 'eponymous categories' over at WP:CAT (or somewhere, I'm sure you can find it). Duplication is seen as a good thing, mostly because naive readers (which is most of them) don't appreciate the distinction and it's better to allow them both navigation paths.
 * If the sheer size of a category becomes a problem (usually when paging kicks in at 200) then the fix for that is to restructure the category to break it down, not to exclude one namespace to make room for the other. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * To McGeddon: You can describe the same problem by replacing "category" with "article". The article basically covers everything about the V&A as well. So why list the article in some categories, but the category in other categories, how does that make sense? And as to your comment about the Asian art museums, the Category:Asian objects in the Victoria and Albert Museum is now listed as an Asian art museum, see Category:Asian objects in the British Museum as format. In this case it is superfluous to double-list the V&A and the Asian objects in the V&A under Asian art museums. Double-listing of categories should be avoided whenever possible. Gryffindor (talk) 09:35, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It looks like there's some scope for pruning the categories that the V&A cat is added to. This should be done on the basis of what's appropriate from the category PoV (i.e. removing Asian art would be good, if we have a more specific sub category that's a better target for inclusion). It should not be done just because there's duplication between article & catgeory namespaces. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:57, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * We are not being very consistent - only the British Museum article is in Category:Non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government for example. I tend to agree with Andy re duplication. Johnbod (talk) 10:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * If we added every category there was and start listing them multiply, even though the cross each other, it would create even more confusion. If the category tree is "a" in "b", and "b" in "c", it would not be a good idea to list "a" again in "c". I don't believe that is how the system here works. Gryffindor (talk) 15:07, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Transitive categories don't seem to be the issue here.
 * Besides which, we should list a in b if and only if we make the encyclopedia better by doing so, i.e. there is some useful relationship between one and the other. This still applies, no matter what the supercategories. It's simply independent of this. If it's better with, then do it anyway.
 * If membership of b fully implies membership of c, then this transitive relationship can be implied and then there's no need to state a in b explicitly. However, this simplification is woefully over-used on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. It only applies if the transitive relationship is fully implied; this is less commonly the case than it appears. Wikimedia categorization just isn't definitive - only rarely do we get to have a case where category membership strongly indicates that "this entry is a &lt;thing&gt;", let alone two of them as super & sub cat. Most times the best we have is "a and b have some strong, useful relationship", but this is still short of real definition, so then suppressing these supposedly transitive category relationships is inappropriate.
 * We also have the case where the relationship between a and c is a direct one, not (or not just) the implication of a, b & c, and so is independent of this (see commons:category:Napier Deltic for a recent example).
 * Andy Dingley (talk) 21:59, 15 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there a clear policy on the usage of articles and categories on Wiki? If not, maybe we are discussing this issue in the wrong forum...? So far I think the system on the Commons makes a lot of sense actually, it seems to be working fine. But that is also maybe because they have clear rules and we here unfortunately might not. Gryffindor (talk) 23:13, 17 April 2011 (UTC)

Culling
This article is so badly structured, in 2007 I worked on this page and got it to an acceptable level with personal and wiki common photos and descriptions added back then.

Since then, due to over-zealous additions this page has become ridiculously cumbersome, over-bloated and doesn't read well at all.

I'm going to perform a culling, removing tonnes of images, and condensing the verbage.

If there are any objections, or rather suggestions, I'd be more than happy to air them out here prior to the massacre which is planned.

Thanks Muj

Observations
I have just looked into the history of this article in sone detail.
 * The badly structured sentences mostly date from the time of a very industrious nameless editor back in 2006.
 * Another editor tweaked the expression and removed superfluous capitals but left the sentence construction exactly as it was.
 * Since 2006, the article has been edited by a number of people who have worked over format, links etc.
 * People have added to the section on collecting areas.
 * In the last 12 months, a section on musical instruments was added.
 * The article was tweaked before putting up for GA, but no-one did any serious revision.

This article could and ought to be a GA article. But it's going to need serious editing. By "serious", I don't mean chopping chunks out of it. I mean reading what is written in a serious and critical manner.

This is harder work than simply cruising around removing superfluous links, formatting the numbers and tweaking the dashes. It means taking an academic approach to it.

Amandajm (talk) 23:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Victoria and Albert Museum. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20130522173534/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5403483.ece to http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5403483.ece


 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20150702212435/http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sackler-centre-for-arts-education-at-the-vanda/ to http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sackler-centre-for-arts-education-at-the-vanda/

Cheers. —cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 08:32, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 one external links on Victoria and Albert Museum. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20111009065114/http://www.vam.ac.uk:80/page/c/completed-futureplan-projects/ to http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/c/completed-futureplan-projects/
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110729031909/http://www.vam.ac.uk:80/content/articles/v/v-and-a-150th-anniversary/ to http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/v/v-and-a-150th-anniversary/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100506074922/http://www.vam.ac.uk:80/collections/prints_books/prints_books/books/index.html to http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/prints_books/prints_books/books/index.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091128100451/http://www.vam.ac.uk:80/collections/metalwork/metalwork_stories/Reichenau_Crozier/index.html to http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/metalwork/metalwork_stories/Reichenau_Crozier/index.html

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Victoria and Albert Museum. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130821211311/http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/VA-Dundee-gets-planning-green-light/30202 to http://theartnewspaper.com/articles/VA-Dundee-gets-planning-green-light/30202
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130117004428/http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property_news/events_and_getaways/victoriaalbertmuseumfurnituregallery.html to http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/property_news/events_and_getaways/victoriaalbertmuseumfurnituregallery.html
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 * Added tag to http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/art-2810
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110515023754/http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/learning/designingbritain/html/bcmi_intro.html to http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/learning/designingbritain/html/bcmi_intro.html

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External links modified
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I have just modified 15 external links on Victoria and Albert Museum. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151208163546/http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/f/futureplan-live-europe-1600-1800/ to http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/f/futureplan-live-europe-1600-1800/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120407022027/http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Albertopolis/TheStoryOf/VictoriaAndAlbertMuseum/Quadrangle.aspx to http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Albertopolis/TheStoryOf/VictoriaAndAlbertMuseum/Quadrangle.aspx
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100516160712/http://www.vam.ac.uk/school_stdnts/education_centre/index.html to http://www.vam.ac.uk/school_stdnts/education_centre/index.html
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120407021946/http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Albertopolis/TheStoryOf/VictoriaAndAlbertMuseum/VictoriaAndAlbertMuseum.aspx to http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Albertopolis/TheStoryOf/VictoriaAndAlbertMuseum/VictoriaAndAlbertMuseum.aspx

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Booking
Do we have to book for Thursday 24th museum? 86.137.139.24 (talk) 13:20, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Try looking at the museum website, this is an encyclopaedia, not a tourist guide. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 16:09, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Article length
Gosh this is a long article. Surely we should move 'Collections' to a separate page? Similarly, the Gallery section could move into the Collections page, with each image in its respective section, for example Paintings or Sculptures. Sadgrove (talk) 20:34, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Library
I'm adding in a small section to point towards the National Art Library, which is a department of the museum. I've also worked with another editor to do some edits in the National Art Library page, so it is more informative than it used to be! AGuidry57 (talk) 18:02, 7 May 2022 (UTC)