Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/William Adam (architect)/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 03:01, 26 November 2007.

William Adam (architect)
Self-nomination (page largely written under my previous username: Edward Waverley). I believe this is of a comparable standard to recently promoted William Bruce (architect). Comments welcome, thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck 08:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
 * When I see a ref like "Gifford, p.110", in which one of these should I look?
 * Gifford, John (1989) William Adam 1689-1748, Mainstream Publishing / RIAS
 * Gifford, John (1990) "William Adam and the Historians", in Architectural Heritage I: William Adam, Edinburgh University Press
 * Gifford, John (1992) The Buildings of Scotland: Highlands and Islands, Penguin
 *  Pagra shtak  19:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Good point! Dated all the Gifford refs. Thanks, Jonathan Oldenbuck 08:48, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Keywords might be easier for the mere reader; although telling the first two apart might be tricky: Adam, "Historians", Buildings, perhaps? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:41, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

support-- M i n i @  08:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment. This is certainly an interesting and valuable page. As far as FA status is concerned, though, I find it unnecessarily (and slightly frustratingly) thin and short. The material is somewhat skated over, in my opinion, and I sense a reluctance to enter into the architectural issues and complications, perhaps out of fear of losing the reader. Speaking for myself, I have come to the conclusion with Wikipedia that when specialist issues exist, some serious attempt should be made to enter into and summarise the complexities in a way that might interest the reader to investigate further. Too great a smoothing of the difficulties runs the risk of verging on the misleading, I feel. For example, the lead says: "Despite this, Adam's work has often been overlooked as it did not fit into the prevailing Palladian fashions of the day, and he is often overshadowed by his son Robert Adam". The article never goes on to say what is meant by "overlooked" or to address that phenomenon; indeed, we see some biographies and studies in the bibliography, so who has done the overlooking? And would such overlooking be done simply because he was not thought to be fashionably Palladian? After all, other non-Palladian architects of the day are not overlooked, for example Vanbrugh. At the very least, this all needs to be addressed in the article itself rather than left as a flat statement in the lead. And, in my opinion, that statement raises questions about whether his work did not fit into the prevailing Palladian fashions. Shortly afterwards, the lead adds that "His individual, exuberant style built on the Palladian style, but with Baroque details inspired by Vanbrugh and Continental architecture...". This tells us that he actually did build, at least partly, in the Palladian style.

I hope this line of thought doesn't seem like undue nitpicking. It my opinion, it goes to the heart of what an architectural biography article needs to provide for the reader: a clear account of the architect's style and, where necessary, an elucidation of the complicated issues and apparent contradictions that always arise with architects (since buildings are not sculptures and are rarely pure). From my limited knowledge of the subject, I would say that a more thorough attempt needs to be made to describe some individual projects, fitting them into an overview of Adam's variety of styles, which included the Palladian and the Baroque (in their British manifestations) and the influence of native Scottish architecture. The views of architectural historians and biographers might also be introduced into the article more often to help underpin such descriptions and lay out the issues for the reader. At 22kb, the article has plenty of room for such expansion. qp10qp 11:52, 13 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks qp10qp, a challenging comment, and one I've given some thought to responding to. Having reread the article, I think you are probably right; the article generally focuses on biographical detail and there is less on the actual architecture. As you say, this is a fairly fundamental issue for a page about an architect. I think a section on "critical appraisal" or something, quoting various sources, might fill a gap, discussing his style and showing how he has been considered provincial, possibly more so in the past than now. I agree that expanded discussions of some of the more important works would also help. I will have a look around and see what I can find. Jonathan Oldenbuck 12:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

No & Oppose Request: Consider adding a Legacy section. Learnedo 07:26, 27 October 2007 (UTC) Few examples: And why is it in the beginning for? It appears to be one person's view. Strong favoritism towards the subject matter.
 * On the basis it does not fulfill #1d NPOV.
 * "Sometimes called Scotland's "Universal Architect", he was the foremost" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Attributing_and_substantiating_biased_statements
 * "Despite this, Adam's work has often been overlooked as it did not fit into the prevailing Palladian fashions of the day, and he is often overshadowed by his son Robert Adam.[2]" Oh so he was overlooked (POV) and we should feel sorry for him because he "did not fit into the prevailing Palladian fashions." "overshadowed" POV
 * "who would go on to even greater fame in" implying that fame already exists. Not NPOV.
 * "It is not known how William Adam became such an important and successful architect from these beginnings," Unnecessary. Stop POV pushing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#State_the_facts
 * And why is there so few sources? Most references are from one or people.
 * The external link: http://scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?r=546&1074 is obliviously http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Bias Can't locate objective sources? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial#Information_suppression Leranedo 06:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Will support when it's not so one-sided. Leranedo 06:36, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Please review * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NPOV_tutorial * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Examples in their entirety. Leranedo 06:23, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Leranedo/Learnedo, without a sample of why you consider the article POV, your "vote" can be considered invalid. Raul, the nominator, and all of us need to see your reasoning.  The nominator can't address it if there is no example.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:32, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think Jonathan Oldenbuck is nominator though am not sure. I only care about the content. Happy editing. Leranedo 06:31, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment, pls review punctuation on sentence fragments per WP:MOS. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 22:21, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I think I got all of it, but it's not as important as NPOV. My modest opinion is that we should purge of "WP:MOS#Captions" so editors can focus on NPOV and content matters. Happy editing. Leranedo 06:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)


 * In defence of the nominator, there really aren't any other serious sources, as far as I can see. The ones used are enough to support a Wikipedia article, I believe. There is more information in them than has been used, though, which is why I proposed expansion.qp10qp 12:01, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Thankyou for your comments and suggestions, I hope to review the article over the next few days. To start, I reworded the lead a bit and tried to addresss the POV issues as follows:
 * Unversal Architect and foremost - attributed, in the lead to "put the work into context" as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Characterizing_opinions_of_people.27s_work
 * next few are all removed as fair points
 * THere is only one full-length work on William Adam. I intend to add some more general sources though.
 * The external link is obviously biased, thats why its an external link, not a source. THis material isnt referenced anywhere, but is there to link to a potentially interesting document - the subject's Testament Testamentar. Jonathan Oldenbuck 13:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.