Wikipedia:Peer review/National Treasures of Japan/archive1

National Treasures of Japan
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've considerably expanded the article and would like to receive suggestions on how to improve this article up to GA standards. I am especially interested in content issues but any suggestions are welcome. When complete, the article is going to get a thorough copy-edit for style and language. I am now going to work on the statistics section and will rewrite the lead section at the very last. All other sections are complete from my standpoint.bamse (talk) 11:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC) Thanks, bamse (talk) 11:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments from Åkebråke:

"National Treasure" has been used since 1897, though the term's pre-1950 and post-1950 significance is different."

How are they different? A short summary at the beginning of the section.

"During World War II many of the designated bulidings were camouflaged, water tanks and fire walls installed for protection. 206 designated buildings including Hiroshima Castle were destroyed from May to August 1945."

So how many buildings were destroyed during the whole war?

"This law was restricted to the ancient capitals Kamakura, Heijō-kyō (Nara), Heian-kyō (Kyoto), Asuka (present day Asuka), Fujiwara-kyō (Kashihara), Tenri, Sakurai and Ikaruga, places with a large number of national treasures."

I think "Asuka (present day Asuka)" should be changed to "Asuka in Yamato (not Asuka in Nara)".

Can the data in the statistics table be presented in another way? For me it does not look so good, it has too many -'s. Åkebråke (talk) 19:24, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your comments. I will add a short summary to explain the difference of pre/post-1950. I don't know how many buildings were destroyed during the whole war. The reference calls the time from May to August: "final phase of WW2." With the Americans getting closer to the mainland around May (Battle of Okinawa from April 1, to June 21, 1945), I would expect that this number is not too far off from the total number of destroyed national treasure buildings. (The earliest small-scale bombings were in April 1942, and bigger operations from China seem to have started in June 1944 from what I understand from the large number of "WW2 in Japan" related articles on wikipedia.) Changed "Asuka (present day Asuka)" to "Asuka, Yamato (present day Asuka, Nara)". Is this what you meant? What do you suggest instead of "-"? I could replace it with "0", but I think it is better for readability this way. (Compare the "0" in the "sum" columns which don't stand out as much, making it harder to see which prefectures have no national treasure. I got the idea with "-" from a FLC where it was suggested (or required, don't remember) to have "-" in empty cells. bamse (talk) 22:38, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I added: "...with the pre-1950 term assigned to a much larger number of cultural properties comparable to today's Important Cultural Properties and National Treasures taken together." to the short summary at the start of the history section.bamse (talk) 10:48, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * In my opinion the statistics table looks bad not since it has "-" instead of "0", but since it is a big table with many holes. The "Historical materials" column contains over 40 empty spaces and only two 1s. Is it nessesary? What is a "fine art and craft" that is not a ancient document, not a archaeological material, not a craft, not a painting, not a sculpture and not a writing? Åkebråke (talk) 21:22, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean. Though honestly, I like the look. The categories are made up by the Agency for Cultural Affairs so I can't do much about it (nor about the number of designated properties per category). An idea could be to merge some of the columns or even all columns such that only the "sum" columns are present (like it was before the expansion of the article). But I like the extra information that this extensive table contains. Actually I merged the two categories (pre/post Meiji) of residences which is kind of natural. "Historical materials" however contain documents, crafts, paintings and weapons, so there is no natural category to merge it in. PS: I am not sure I understood what you were hinting at with your last question ("What is a "fine art and craft" that is not a ancient document, not a archaeological material, not a craft, not a painting, not a sculpture and not a writing?"). Could you explain?bamse (talk) 22:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I had just a bit hard to imagine what a "fine art or craft" could be that did not fit into either category. Åkebråke (talk) 19:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hm, still not sure I understand the problem. There are two main categories: 1. "buildings and structures" and 2. "fine arts and crafts". Each of these is further divided into a number of subcategories. For instance "Fine arts and crafts" is divided in "paintings", "sculptures",... Did this help to imagine?bamse (talk) 20:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)