Wikipedia talk:GLAM/ROM

Project Questions
One of your projects's articles, Incense burner (ROM) ‎ was listed for proposed deletion. I removed the tag, but the article will probably very soon be listed for an WP:AFD deletion discussion, though not by me. (correction--it has already been listed, while I was writing this)

I'm an admin, and involved in GLAM as Wikipedian in Residence at the NY Public Library of the Performing Arts, and I've commented in several of the discussion of articles from the GLAM projects on related questions. There are two related problems: the immediate one, is meeting the technical WP requirements for notability, which requires substantial coverage of the object by independent sources. In this connection, "independent" is usually defined as meaning sources by sources not connected with the museum. The general one, is what objects to pick for WP articles. My own feeling is that they should either be unique, or iconic. By unique I do not mean the small differences that distinguish all non-mass produced objects. I do not really think the incense burner is iconic for the type of objects, unless there is information I have not noticed --perhaps a case can be made that the iconography is unusual. (a practical test might be what incense burners of the period are used as illustrations on standard books). As a illustrative contrast, another object from the museum, Wei Bin's Temple Bell is distinctive, and there is probably  sufficient professional literature on this particular bell.

There's another question. Again, using an object from the museum, should an article like Earl of Pembroke's Armour give a general description of the type of armour it represents--should it, for example, describe the elements that make up a complete garniture? It's certainly appropriate for a museum label, which is normally intended to be self-contained--but a WP article is hypertext, and not under such restriction.--we consequently generally use links in articles of all sorts for general descriptions. &#39;DGG (at NYPL)&#39; (talk) 18:56, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


 * These questions have been answered on my talk page.--MJMcGowan (talk) 20:00, 8 October 2013 (UTC)