Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Coat of arms of Albany, New York/archive1


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 01:57, 2 November 2010.

Coat of arms of Albany, New York

 * Nominator(s):  upstate NYer  01:11, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

This is a complete article regarding the coat of arms of the city of Albany, New York. In writing this article, I believe I have completely exhausted the sources on the topic and have created a concise, yet complete history and description of the past and current coats of arms of the city. This is a relatively short article, so reviews shouldn't take that long if you're looking for a quickie. :)

FYI, I realize that no alt shows for the infobox image, but it doesn't seem like that template offers an alt field. I have text in the infobox code for an alt, but it's just not being used. There are no other coats of arms FAs, so I had no precedent to look at with regards to a missing alt on the lead image.

Happy reviewing.  upstate NYer  01:11, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Comments 2c: Munsell, Joel (1865) lacks a location; is the location unknown? It also appears to be a self published source being used for a statement of fact, is the fact non-trivial or is Munsell an expert?  Fifelfoo (talk) 01:35, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Location added. Munsell was a high-profile publisher in the mid 1800s in Albany. He was also the Albany city historian and author of many books. The fact that he was both was essentially coincidence.  upstate NYer  01:41, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Very happy, the right kind of SPS (expert, credible) and a very mid 19th century thing to be a person of many talents. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:39, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Quick comments

That's just a quick look. → ROUX   ₪  01:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The infobox I've used at Canadian heraldry does take an alt parameter;
 * There are images sandwiching the text between them; this is bad for readability;
 * Is there a reason that you are using a mix of blazon and plain english to describe the arms?
 * That being said, I don't agree that the escutcheon is party per fess; it looks more to me like a chief; I'd probably blazon something along the lines of gules two sheaves of wheat Or, in chief argent a beaver (gnawing?) a tree (don't know the heraldic term for a felled tree) both proper, but would suggest checking with someone like Tamfang or WP:WPHV for a proper blazon. And upon closer inspection, your source here includes an attempt (though not a very good one) at a blazon; why didn't you use it?
 * Made the reference to the Albany Institute more explicit. That was the source for 90% of the text in that section. I include plain English because most people don't know the technical terminology. As for it being party per fess, that comes from the same reference you source. Not knowing what that meant when I originally wrote this, I went searching and thought the example matched what I was looking at. Apparently 'blazon' means something more than I thought. Can you be more explicit? I didn't use the terminology fully from the source so I wouldn't plagiarize, but then again with the limited terminology, that's not easy. Template:Infobox heraldry doesn't include the detail of the template I used. I'd rather be missing an alt for a while than the necessary detail of the article (i.e., what's more important to the article?).  upstate NYer  01:58, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * It is perfectly acceptable to quote verbatim as long as proper attribution is given. Blazon has two basic meanings: first, a blazon is a description in heraldic language of a given armorial achievement. In fact, it is the blazon that is actually awarded; any depiction of the arms contained in the blazon, so long as the elements are reproduced faithfully, is correct. The easiest way to explain it is that the blazon is a recipe; there will always be variations in the cooked product, but any competent person given the recipe will create something that undeniably is what was intended. Secondly, blazon is the heraldic language, derived mainly from Norman French. 'Party per fess' means 'parted in a fess' (using the image you quoted above, you can see why the arms as illustrated in the image don't appear to be per fess; party per fess is an equal division of the field. given the source however, it would appear either that the illustrator was not entirely competent, or that the source itself is mistaken). In addition, 'armiger' means 'bearer of the arms' in this case the City of Albany (or whatever the official name for the body is). I think perhaps you might be well served by getting some of the folks at WP:WPHV to go over this article before you try for FA. → ROUX   ₪  02:10, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, this is actually a pretty small part of the article, so I'll ask them to weigh in here.  upstate NYer  02:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment - no dab links or dead external links. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:28, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * You might get a question about whether you got authorisation for a second FAC nom. On another note, In the book locations, why didn't you include Hilversum, New Holland, and NY for Albany, as opposed to the other states  YellowMonkey  ( new photo poll )  05:36, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you, YM; no, There is no authorization for this nominator to have two FACs up at once, and Featured article candidates/Albany City Hall/archive1 doesn't have consensus to Support, so I'll archive this FAC. Upstate, please read the instructions at WP:FAC regarding one nom at a time; this helps us lower the FAC backlog.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 01:56, 2 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.