Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/University of Missouri School of Music/archive3

University of Missouri School of Music

 * Nominator(s): Grey Wanderer (talk) 18:40, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

This article is about the University of Missouri School of Music in Columbia, Missouri. This is the article's third nomination, previous nominations have failed to attract enough reviews. All previous concerns have been addressed. Grey Wanderer (talk) 18:40, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Image review pass per previous FACs. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  19:52, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment The history section is quite long, it would have improved readability if you inserted 2-3 subheadings at === level. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  19:52, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Your fix looks nice is and exactly where I would have divided it. Grey Wanderer (talk) 01:13, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

did the source review at the previous FAC, do you feel that your concerns have been addressed? (t &#183; c)  buidhe  19:52, 15 March 2021 (UTC) Also pinging, , and who commented on the last FAC. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  19:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

HF
Will take a look soon. Might claim for WikiCup points. The previous FAC was the first FAC I ever reviewed, so I will likely have additional comments. Off-topic comment - I am rooting for Mizzou to beat Oklahoma on the 20th. Hog Farm Talk 23:58, 16 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Do we know when in 1917 the department was founded? Beginning of the academic year, what would be considered the fall semester now, or is it not known?
 * I get the impression from the history there is no one day the department was founded, but the first classes were held beginning at fall semsster, I think it's best in general as that is what is in the source.


 * Was Quarles the first chair of the department?
 * He was the second, I have added that Pommer was first chair.


 * "and continues to the present day." - "to the present day" is inherently ambiguous. I'd recommend using an as of date based on the Budds source or even a more recent one demonstrating that it is still occurring.
 * Added a new source for 2021 series


 * "and august musical guest visited campus" - This should be guests, right?
 * Fixed


 * " Copeland conducted the University Philharmonic and narrated his orchestral work Lincoln Portrait" - There is no e in Copland
 * Fixed


 * I'm unsure about the appropriateness of referring to it as "the School" in the chronological bits before it was actually given the name School of Music; that seems like a bit of an anachronism to me.
 * Fix two instances of this.


 * "saw the appointment of its first woman director" - Would the Wikipedia MOS prefer "female" instead of "woman" here? I have no idea
 * I like female better. Fixed


 * Link KMUC.
 * Done


 * "The School of Music has a partnerships with four Brazilian institutions and a conservatory of music in Avellino, Italy --> "The School of Music has a partnerships with four Brazilian institutions ..."
 * Fixed


 * Belem is linked in consecutive sentences
 * Fixed


 * "The Mizzou Music Initiative has encouraged the creation of new music and composers such as Stephanie Berg who has seen her work performed by the St. Louis Symphony" - The only one of the refs that mentions Berg by name is an interview of her. I'm a little uncomfortable with only using a primary source associated with her to be the thing leading to her being called out by name in the article.  It's a great accomplishment, but I think we need a secondary source for that.
 * Added NPR source.


 * "Faculty ensembles include the Esterhazy Quartet, the Missouri Quintet (woodwinds), Mizzou Brass, and DRAX" - Esterhazy is explained above; the Quintet is identified as to type, "Mizzou Brass" is obviously a brass group. But what's DRAX?
 * Added explanation.


 * Quarles is listed as a source but isn't used
 * My understanding of bibliography is that this should also include publications closely related to the topic, they don't necessarily have to be used as sources. But am willing to delete, if you still feel strongly.
 * Maybe move the unused ones to a Further reading section? So it's clear that they're not used as sources for the article content, but they're also included, since they're relevant? Hog Farm Talk 00:52, 25 March 2021 (UTC)
 * How bout if I add a line in the history about the publication of "University of Missouri Songs" and use that as a source, I kinda don't want another section with only one entry. Would that work for you?
 * Works for me
 * Done.


 * I'm concerned that some of the See Also links fail MOS:SEEALSO. The Columbia Chorale seems to be the only one with a really strong connection.
 * Deleted all but Columbia Chorale

After reviewing this, I think I need to recuse from entering into any declarations here. I think I probably have a COI with this one. I personally know several alumni, and I was involved in a couple high school events sponsored by the school. It's a rather light COI, but enough that I don't quite feel comfortable entering into a declaration on this. Hog Farm Talk 04:07, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Source review – Pending
Thanks for the ping Buidhe, I'm glad to see this back here. I'll take a look soon. Aza24 (talk) 01:56, 18 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Formatting
 * refs 2, 3, 46, links should be marked as dead
 * Updated 2 and 3 with new urls, 46 marked dead but archived


 * I'm getting the sense that you're including the website URL for non-news web sources, this should be done for ref 41,
 * Done


 * ref 47 says February 1st for me
 * Fixed


 * Got to 47, more later... Aza24 (talk) 04:27, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * When I click on ref 48 & 68 I get "Your connection is not private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information from www.sinquefieldcharitablefoundation.com" so... I guess mark the link as dead??
 * Done


 * refs 49–51 should be marked as dead, as should 53–54, 56–59, 62, 65 – I mean at this point, are you sure you even have the right links?
 * Looks like the school of music website made small changes to a bunch of urls, this will be fixable just need a bit to update these. I would rather update then mark as dead, even though there are perfectly good archives.


 * Shouldn't ref 70 have The Ann Arbor News as the work not publisher? Columbia Daily Tribune, USA Today and Fulton Sunas well I believe (the former needs a link like the others)
 * I'm having a bit of trouble, what parameter would the link be?
 * Oops yes I'm not sure what link I was referring to. But for the parameter thing, for example, in ref 27 you have |publisher=Columbia Daily Tribune but later you have |work=Columbia Daily Tribune; they should all be the latter in this case, since using "work" italicizes, which is what we want for news sources.
 * Fixed


 * Why include locations (Troy, Missouri & Cape Girardeau, Missouri:) for refs 74 & 75 (& 106), but no other web sources? I would remove these locations, for consistency's sake
 * Fixed


 * Boonville Daily News missing link
 * Added


 * 97 should be marked as dead
 * Done


 * ref 109 just goes to the home page for me, so mark it dead, I guess?
 * Done


 * Reliability
 * Looks fine. Given the subject matter, I'm inclined to let what might be seen as primary sources be permissible, since I'm fairly confident much of the information they cover is not available elsewhere.


 * Verifiability
 * Seems fine, will do formal spotchecks below. Aza24 (talk) 04:47, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Spotchecks – Pending
Will do soon, probably tomorrow. Aza24 (talk) 04:47, 23 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Aza24 Friendly reminder (t &#183; c)  buidhe  18:43, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
 * 42 a - good
 * 42 b, not seeing this
 * 102–111 - good
 * can't access 59 (please add an archive link) but an archived version seems to cover the info here
 * 58 looks good
 * 61 looks good but needs to be archived as the current link is dead
 * other than 42 b, there's a lot of dead links, please go to "View History" and do "Fix dead links"—I would do it but the bot seems to be done at the moment—I would recommend checking the "add archive links to non-dead links". Aza24 (talk) 21:22, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

A few comments on prose
Oppose: Sorry this has had such bad luck finding people to review over the past couple of years. It has been a while since I have been involved in an FAC nomination, but my inclination is that this is pretty close with the exception of the prose, which strikes me as having a few issues, some relating to general tone (it's not exactly advertisement-like, but it doesn't strike me as "detached encyclopedia voice" to quite the extent we might hope) and others relating to phrasing. For that reason, I would be inclined to say it probably does not meet the prose criteria at this time and might benefit from a thorough copyedit. That said, a few specific observations:


 * "Music has accompanied life at the University of Missouri since the dedication of Academic Hall in 1843." Seems like an odd way to start? I don't know what it means for "music to accompany life" unless that just means the school of music was founded in 1843, in which case I think it should just say that?
 * "Although of that first venue only The Columns remain, music itself has since become a serious topic of study at the University." A venue is a singular thing, so I struggle with the construction here. Perhaps it would be clearer to say something like "All that is left of that original venue are its landmark columns" and then merge the remainder of the current second sentence into the third sentence that begins the curricular discussion.
 * "Instruction as part of official curriculum began" ... meaning the official university curriculum? Or official instruction that counted for academic credit? Needs clarification.
 * "The Department of Music as part of the College of Arts and Sciences was established in 1917, largely due to the efforts of Pommer, who would charir the department and continue to teach at the University until his retirement in 1922." First, there's a typo in "charir" (that I'll try to remember to fix when I'm done here), but second and more significantly, I'm struggling to follow the modifiers here. Does this mean that the Department of Music was established in 1917 and it was part of the College of Arts and Sciences? Or that the College of Arts and Sciences was established in 1917?
 * General comment: "Department" is capitalized a lot throughout the article. I don't think it's right for us to treat it as a proper noun throughout? Though I have not read the MOS on that issue recently ...
 * I am struggling to discern much narrative from the second paragraph of the "founding" subsection. At this point, was the department granting degrees? Teaching classes? (If so, in what?) It reads as just sort of a list of ensembles and concerts ... and if that's what it was at the time, it would be helpful to clarify that because I don't think that's how one might think of a school of music.
 * Phrases like "Growth came with a downside" are probably not appropriate ... they editorialize a bit and detract from the encyclopedic tone, I think.
 * In the academics section, some history on these degrees would be helpful. Have they always offered these two degrees? Also, I'm not sure listing all of the focus areas is necessarily necessary?

All of this is to say that, while this is certainly an informative article and provides some information that is useful for general readers (as well as prospective students, frankly), I tend to think it probably does not meet the FA criteria for quality of writing at this point and would benefit from a thorough copyedit or peer review to comb through some of that. I can try to help with some more comments on that front in the coming days if that's helpful.  Go  Phightins  !  01:48, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Coordinator comment
Three weeks in and this nomination has picked up no general supports. Unless there are signs of a consensus to support developing over the next two or three days I am afraid that this is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:54, 5 April 2021 (UTC)
 * It seems clear that there is some way to go before achieving a consensus to promote and so I am archiving this. I suggest further work off-FAC, possibly with the editors who have commented above and/or possibly at Peer review - courtesy ping to - with a view to a future resubmission. There will be the usual two week pause before a further nomination can be made. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:34, 9 April 2021 (UTC)