User:Mkadams888/Sandbox

Nov 9th
It was very helpful to read through the articles which were previously created by a group of Museum Studies students to document public art in and around the IUPUI campus. If possible, I will include the artist's name along with the title, ie. Procession of Ants (Bowen). Including the artist's name makes sense for two of the works I'll be documenting, since they have fairly simple names, and will become more easily identifiable for Wiki users. I found several easily fixed grammatical errors in one of the pages I visited in particular, which indicates that grammar and spelling peer reviews should be conducted as part of our project. Two sets of eyes are better than one, as I have often made simple errors which were caught by a human (rather than computerized) proof reader. Some of the pages I visited lacked external links, the addition of which would help engage the interest of the reader, as well as provide portals for more information. Almost all of the pages included a sole picture of the object, and some didn't have a picture at all. The omission of pictures may be due a copyright issue, but if so, should be briefly addressed in the article itself. Including multiple pictures of an object, particularly of an interesting detail or an informational plaque, gives the reader a better idea of what the piece actually looks like. Procession of Ants definitely could have used a close-up shot of one of the ants, as foliage takes up most of the sole photo. Several articles included a quote from the corresponding artist, which helped to explain their overall artistic goals, or the motivation for that particular piece. Several students created external links to the Museum Studies project Flickr page, and See-Also sections which listed links to similar pieces. I'd like to do the same with my articles; the Flickr link will allow access to more pictures of not only my assigned pieces, but those chosen by my classmates as well. I'd like to include a See-Also section with links to the other six sculptures which represent the Values of Civilization, as they are part of a set created by Alexander Doyle. I'm new to Wikipedia, and am still trying to figure out the wonderful world of computer code, but having access to articles written by fellow Museum Studies students will help me in creating mine.

Nov 16th
I chose to edit the Herron Arch 1 article, since it was labeled as one of the most prominent pieces of art on the IUPUI campus. The overall quality of the article was good, as their were no glaring grammar or spelling errors. The information and description of the article were fairly straightforward, and I saw no immediate problems regarding NPOV. The article didn't appear to have any tags. The headings of the article were laid out clearly enough, but it lacked external links to the Museum Studies Flickr page, which many of the other authors chose to include in their own pages. One of the references is quoted from The Indianapolis Star, and while the reference itself is from a reliable source, it would be better to insert a quote from an art critic, the Dean of Herron, or a more recent interview with the artist. The second reference is a link to an article on the Public Art Indianapolis site. The article itself contains several elementary misspellings, like ‘and’, ‘career,’ and ‘depict.’ The author of the article even refers to the artist as ‘Willie Faust.’ The use of a well-edited reference in its stead would give the impression that it's more reliable.

I would like to do a bit more research on the artist and include it, along with several more pictures of the piece itself. I feel as though I have improved the page, by adding categories, external links, and links to similar pieces, but there is always room for rephrasing and providing more detailed information. I believe that this project is actually very important, as the detailed pictures of chipped paint or damaged stone will help the public assess the condition of the artwork. An IUPUI student could come across this article and decide to take a look at the sculpture for themselves. I have also thought about providing a link to this year's WSPA project, in an effort to cultivate on-going interest in the Museum Studies program and the art and culture of Indiana.

Nov 30th
It's been a rough few weeks as far as research goes. Though I was initially informed that Clara Beth Leonard sculpted the Bust of Stephen Neal, it turns out that the artist's name was actually Clara (or Clare) Barth Leonard Sorensen (or Sorenson) Dieman. This is due to her marrying twice during her lifetime. Even with her full, correct name, it has been difficult to find more than the most rudimentary information about her, though I intend on returning to the State Archives and State Library to do more research later this week. I have chosen to name the article without including her last name; though she was known as Clara Barth Leonard when she created the sculpture, she is listed most commonly as Clara Barth Dieman. I want to make the article as easy to find as possible, so hopefully that will eliminate some confusion. I'm hoping to compile what little information I find to create an article page for her, though it certainly won't be done in time for our final class.

Alexander Doyle has, naturally, been easier to find information about, as he is a much more widely known artist. Still, questions linger about how exactly the sculptures were constructed, and by who. It is impossible to know without access to his personal papers or records whether or not he traveled to Carrara, Italy to either oversee the work being done by local artisans, or to sculpt the pieces himself. He was busy with many other projects during the time period (1880-1888) in question, so I find it hard to believe that he had the time to travel to Italy and back again multiple times a year, while still finding time to create sculptures in New York and Ohio. It is possible that, like master painters, Doyle set up a workshop where his students could create works based on his designs, while still denoting them as part of his own creative output. As Wikipedia doesn't allow original research, however, I will have to leave those conjectures to this subpage.

While Wikipedia frustrated me at first, like anything I'm not used to, I think I've gotten the hang of it. At least until I tried to upload photos to my article page today, and then all hell broke loose. I wasn't sure that I could connect with this project at first, as the majority of the work is completed online in a forum which everyone has access to. I didn't like the idea of creating an article just to have someone change or even delete it. However, it's pretty cool to be able to edit any article you like. If you see a spelling error, fix it! If you see a grammatically clunky phrase, you can rewrite it! I'm in heaven.

I'm well aware that my articles as they stand now are clearly not Wikipedia worthy, but I'm still hesitant to put the bulk of my information into them until I get it worded correctly. I know that the whole point of Wikipedia is that it is an ongoing process, and an article is never done, I'm just having a difficult time letting go of the illusion of control.