Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Alchemy/archive1

Alchemy
I came across this while admiring Gold, below. A good summary of a prodigious amount of information. Not perfect, tackles the subject solely from the perspective of a historian, but then other perspectives may be difficult to pull off seriously. I find it the equal of some currently-featured articles. 05:48, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC) (I think the nominator is User:Sj.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen ( talk)]] 20:15, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC))
 * Support good article, could probably stand to have someone copy edit it first. And is there any way to get the first image at the top lightened, its awfully dark. Alkivar 06:03, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * support--Alexandre Van de Sande 17:05, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Wow, incredible article! Masterfully organized, does justice to a fascinating subject. Just a few pedantries: 1) I don't understand what "the division of the world into four basic elements was as much a geometric principle as a geological one" means. The geometric link is no help. 2) Something seems to have gone wrong with the paragraph about Isaac Newton and alchemy and astrology. I don't know if the paragraph is the raked-over embers of an edit war, but it looks a bit like it. 3) Are you sure you want page numbers in the parenthetic references (consistently punctuated wrong, btw)? I think the principle should be that all scholarly apparatus is as-needed only, since it weighs down the text, Wikipedia is not a learned journal. In other words, leave out page no's if the place can easily be found using the book's index, include them if it can't. But that may already be the principle, only the authors know. 4) The format of the References section would be good enough for just any article, but I think actual Manual of style recommended format would be best for a Featured article; or, at any rate, there should be full bibliographical information (=including publisher and place). Support.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (now happy)]] 20:08, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * The above are objections with specific rationales that can be addressed, how about it? (Thanks PR IIS for fixing 4.) Sheesh, just because I put it nicely... --[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 19:14, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * For 2), I removed that whole paragraph. It was one big non-sequitur. I moved the link to the Newton Occult article to the other mention of Newton in the Overview section. 3) I'm afraid to touch the parenthetical refs--maybe only the person who originally contributed the article (who seems to be long gone) could really make judgements on that. Unless someone with more nerve is willing to either yank them out or actually follow up on them--they seem to be there only because the original article began life as a term paper (according to the Talk page). As to 1), your guess is as good as mine! PR IIS 23:06, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, Wikipedia shouldn't promulgate a sentence that nobody can understand, I've removed it. I don't have the nerve to touch the page numbers either. I'll fix the parenthetic ref punctuation sometime. Thanks!--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 03:57, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Abstain Good work, no doubt about it. But I think that period of renaissance, Edward Kelley and such is much too brief. I will try to recall, verify and add some information, until then I will abstain. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 23:56, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Support - good work. Andre ( talk )A| 23:58, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. Nice work. Filiocht 10:51, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. Maybe the top picture could be enlarged, or cropped? It currently is a bit obscure, and I only saw what was on the picture when I clicked on it. Jeronimo 20:09, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. easily. (enlarged image). dab 20:16, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. Zerbey 23:27, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. Disclosure: I did some work on the references. I also tried to lighten the image, but I suspect the effect was too garish and it got switched back. I also did some formatting of the talk page a long time ago. PR IIS  04:10, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. Fun to read. ReallyNiceGuy 18:40 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Support. I found it awhile ago after reading up on Fullmetal Alchemist of all things and really enjoyed it. Well-written, very fun. Reene (&#12522;&#12491;) 13:16, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)