Wikipedia:Featured article review/Du Fu/archive1


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

The article was kept by YellowAssessmentMonkey 00:45, 25 August 2009.

Review commentary

 * Notified WikiProject China, Henry Flower and PericlesofAthens.

This September 2004 FA promotion currently fails FA criterion 1c, as there are a number of paragraphs void of citations. In addition, there seems to be a reliance on one particular source (Chou's Reconsidering Tu Fu: Literary Greatness and Cultural Context) even though there are a number of scholarly works on this author. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 14:39, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree on the referencing issues. I've done a little work on the article. However, it looks like a lot of the unreferenced paragraphs are taken from the given sources at some point, and I don't have access to a university library to find the books and create inline citations. I also have some concerns over content: is that really all that can be said about the technical and literary elements of Du Fu's poetry? I feel like for anyone with access to a university library and some time, this would be an easy save, but that is not me.--Danaman5 (talk) 18:04, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd love to contribute, but I'm busy with a big up-and-coming project on Ancient Egyptian literature (I've got enough books checked out for that already!). Unfortunately, I think this will lose its FA status if someone knowledgeable and willing does not "step up to the plate," so to speak.-- Pericles of Athens  Talk 19:39, 14 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Done; thanks. Images need alt text as per WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 20:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Done. I've never added alt text before, so I would appreciate if you could check and see if what I've written is proper.--Danaman5 (talk) 03:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * What you did is very nice, thanks. I tweaked it in tiny ways. At your option, please transcribe the Chinese characters in File:Dufucalligraphy.jpg into its alt text. This would be more for Google searches than for visually-impaired readers, but there may be an odd reader that could make use of it too. Eubulides (talk) 05:45, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The biographical part of the article is from Hung, as Dananman5 suggests.  Personally I think that adding page numbers for every undisputed fact is a pointless exercise, so I won't be doing it, but if anyone really wants to, that's the one to look in. :) HenryFlower 16:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, reliables sources, prose, comprehensiveness, balance, alt text. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ?  YellowMonkey  ( cricket photo poll! '') paid editing=POV 02:41, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I now have access to my original notes again, so if anyone wants citations for any particular points (rather than the usual drive-by tagging), I can probably supply them. Just ask on my talk page. HenryFlower 16:53, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


 *  Delist . There's a ton of citations that need to be added, the prose should be checked, the images need to be verified, and there's more room for further Wikilinking or explanations. At least a brief explanation should be given for many of the titles, positions, and historical elements in the article. In regards to the prose, there's a great deal of passive voice. I rewrote some portions, but others remain. The biggest issue is the citations, which are severely lacking in places. Many of these might be fixable using sources already existing in the article, but some may not, I fear. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:11, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 *  Hold . Henry Flower's addressed pretty much all of my concerns. There's only two fact tags that need to be addressed, but I'm pretty confident that he'll fix them when he gets the source. JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:25, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep. Awesome work by Henry Flower! The only thing that sticks out to me would be converting the two citations in the translation section to inline footnotes instead of main-body references, but since I didn't raise that in my initial review, I'm not going to hold back a keep for that. Great job! JKBrooks85 (talk) 19:21, 16 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 03:12, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Hold Work is being done by Henry Flower. Let's give him a chance. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've finished adding the references JKBrooks asked for.  In reply to a couple of the points above: Hung is the only full-length biography of Du in English, and is still the standard work, so it's not surprising that the bio is based on that.   The impression that all of the criticism section is from Chou was partly caused by mistakes made when my Harvard references were converted to footnotes; I've now restored the correct attributions to other authors. HenryFlower 12:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep Kudos to Henry Flower. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Great job with the references, Henry Flower. Is the point raised by Danaman5 still an issue? Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 15:46, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * If you are referring to the alt text, it has been added. &mdash; mattisse  (Talk) 16:14, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think Nishkid was referring to this comment from Danaman5: "I also have some concerns over content: is that really all that can be said about the technical and literary elements of Du Fu's poetry?" Dabomb87 (talk) 16:16, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes. That I do not know. The "Technical excellence" section seems rather superficial, with no examples given  of his poetry in English so the reader can not get an idea of what is meant. But I do not know how much in depth analysis is available. &mdash; mattisse  (Talk) 16:23, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment A search on JSTOR revealed several scholarly articles that could potentially be sources of info for this article. For example,
 * (a book by this author is used as a source)
 * Not being an expert in this area, I can't attest to their value with regard to the article on wiki. However, I think it's worth checking out by Henry Flower if he so wishes. I can email him the articles. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I have access to JSTOR as well and will check out these articles and others to see what can be added. Please hold for a little while longer.--Danaman5 (talk) 17:18, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep  YellowMonkey  ( cricket photo poll! ) paid editing=POV 02:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep  YellowMonkey  ( cricket photo poll! ) paid editing=POV 02:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I did look through JSTOR when I was finding references, so I know of those articles, though I haven't read through them.  I didn't add them at the time because they're quite specific in their topics, and there's no reason why those particular points should be in the article rather than the many other particular points discussed in the full-length works on Du Fu.   Yes, more could be written about specific aspects of his poetry, but I take the view that an article on the poet himself should contain a general overview, and the three broad areas already covered in the article are those which dominate Du Fu criticism. We could (should!) have spin-off articles on 'Social Responsibility in Du Fu', 'Du Fu's poems on paintings' etc., but I think to go into those here would muddy the waters.  Far too many articles on Wikipedia are catalogues of minutiae which bloat with no regard to the overall structure; the point of encyclopedias is that they provide an organisationally useful level of abstraction. (IMHO)
 * As for the point raised by Mattisse: yes, there is a lack of specific examples in English, and yes, there is analysis of examples in the literature, but it´s really not of much use to readers who don´t have some Chinese.  The linguistic and formal features which stand out in Du Fu - the grammar, the vocabulary, and the word order - are pretty much tied to the original language.   Personally I´d like to have some Chinese examples in there, but people tend to complain when articles require some background knowledge of other languages.
 * Since last week I've moved to Mozambique; beyond the general chaos of moving, this has reduced my library facilities to the couple of Chinese books I've brought with me, so I doubt I can help much more with this article. Danaman, please do add more, but as I say I do think that specific areas are better covered in spin-off articles. HenryFlower 12:09, 18 August 2009 (UTC)


 * (A parenthesis - thanks to all those who asked questions during this review. It sent me back to the original books and made the process much more rewarding than the usual FAR. :)  )HenryFlower 12:21, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, looks a bit better post some work done on the article, nice job so far. :) Cirt (talk) 23:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.