Talk:Mark Barr/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Wilhelmina Will (talk · contribs) 04:48, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

GA criteria

Well-written:

With one or two minor grammatical tweaks having been seen to, the article seems to comply with MOS policies for grammar and structural layout. The heading seems appropriate for an article of this size, and also summarizes the basic points made in the body paragraphs and sections. To the point that the words have become unintelligible. (talk) 04:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

(a) the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct

(b) it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation

Verifiable with no original research:

(a) it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline

(b) reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose)

(c) it contains no original research

Broad in its coverage:

As I think I mentioned recently in one of my other GARs, there's a relative level of subjectivity to the reviewer's assessment of the article's qualification on this particular criterion. That said, I agree with the nominator that as far as covering the grounds goes, one has to account for what reliable sources are available to verify, foremost. On top of that, the reviewer must also decide how satisfactorily informing they find the content as presented, and I personally feel that the article gives a satisfactorily rounded account of Barr's biography, from an encyclopedic standpoint. To the point that the words have become unintelligible. (talk) 04:10, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

(a) it addresses the main aspects of the topic

(b) it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.

Having read over the content of the article, it does not strike me as having a biased tone; when quoting the statements that were mentioned in the additional comments below, it reads as a simple statement that these things were said, nothing more. To the point that the words have become unintelligible. (talk) 04:05, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

It looks as though the article has not suffered from any edit warring or other disruptive editing behaviours since at least around this time last year, based on a review of the most recent revisions. To the point that the words have become unintelligible. (talk) 03:35, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:

It is obviously always preferable for an article's topic to be illustrated, but seeing as this often is not able to be done, my concern rests with whether or not any images that are used in the article serve a relevant purpose, and are appropriately licensed for their usage. Both these criteria are met by the sole image used in this article at the present time. To the point that the words have become unintelligible. (talk) 03:32, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

(a) media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content

(b) media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions

@Wilhelmina Will: Are you planning to come back and evaluate whether it passes the criteria you have listed above, or what needs to be done for it to do so? It's been more than a month. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:20, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Sure thing. To the point that the words have become unintelligible. (talk) 03:27, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

@Wilhelmina Will: time for another monthly ping? The torpedo-shooters in the comments below are getting restless. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Reviewer's comments

• For starters, and partly in lieu of the additional commenters' concerns below, does this phrase from the second paragraph of the intro, "...and especially calculating machines" necessarily have to employ the term "especially"? Truth be told, even making this suggestion feels a bit arbitrary, but the term "particularly" used in this instance might come across as a more objective word choice. To the point that the words have become unintelligible. (talk) 03:40, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Changed "and especially" to "including". —David Eppstein (talk) 05:48, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Second opinion request

As I stated in the criteria list above, at face value I see nothing holding this article back. However, as per the additional comments below, I would appreciate another, previously uninvolved, experienced reviewer's thoughts on how the sources used and the material in the article itself add up, before I make my final decision. To the point that the words have become unintelligible. (talk) 04:19, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Additional comments by Lingzhi

• @David Eppstein: If you use the scripts I mentioned earlier, the references for this article are drowned in a sea of red ink. Errors abound. Wanna fix? Load scripts to see them. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 06:11, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
  • You're not persuading me that the software you're trying to spam here is useful. Anyone can write scripts that dump red ink all over everything. Whether that red ink indicates actual problems that need fixing is a different question. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:42, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

(←) The list of possible errors is on the description pg that was linked here before you deleted the link. This Mark Barr article is actually somewhat better than average, with only the following:

• Inconsistent use of Publisher Location (9 with; 6 without);
• 12 sources are Missing Identifier/control number, e.g. OCLC;
• Mark Barr". Who was who: Missing Year/Date;

Good luck with your nom. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 14:53, 16 February 2018 (UTC)

Additional comments by Usernameunique

Having read this article through several times, I do not believe that it is close to GA status. Having also taken a detailed look at its sources, it appears that it would be hard to bring the article to that level. The article has three main problems. First, what Barr is said to be notable for, his work on the golden ratio, is barely discussed in any detail. Second, despite his work on the golden ratio being his apparent claim to notability, the only sources which mention it hardly mention Barr, and the only sources that discuss Barr in any depth do not mention it at all. Finally, an apparent dearth of information about Barr has led to an article that is largely a collection of random, anecdotal, and irrelevant pieces of trivia.

First, though the article treats Barr's work on the golden ratio as his claim to notability, this work is discussed in hardly any detail. The one paragraph that covers this work boils down to two points: 1) Barr did some unspecified work on the golden ratio, and 2) Barr helped name the concept. There's almost nothing else, and a look at the sources shows that he is barely referenced. The first source is literally to the acknowledgements section of somebody else's paper, and the second one has only two passing references to him. Despite it being the crux of Barr's claim to notability, the sentence "By including Barr's notation in his 1914 book on the golden ratio, Cook made it much more widely known" is uncited; if one were to read the sources used in this article independent of the article itself, one would not think that Barr's work on the golden ratio was of any significance. Even when discussing Barr's work on the ratio within the article, his contribution is not stated, his job is never mentioned, his place of employment is omitted, and the time in which he did his work are left out.

Second, the sources used in the article are quite weak. There are only three that discuss Barr in any depth: his eight-sentence obituary in the Times, nine sentences in a trade journal, and half a page afforded in the yearbook of his club. None of these sources mention his work on the golden ratio at all, despite it apparently being Barr's claim to notability. The interesting parts, such as Barr's work with Tesla, are glanced over in the article; the gold medal won in Paris, mentioned in two of his three obituaries, doesn't even make it past the lead. Most of the sources speak of Barr only in passing, in lists, or even in parentheses. Filling the article with these mentions—Barr's failures to sell his inventions, or his "investigation of psychic phenomena"—does little to help either the article or Barr's claim to notability, and if anything, does the opposite.

Finally, this article is almost entirely a collection of disjointed and irrelevant anecdotes. It appears to be an amalgamation of every time Barr's name appears in a source, rather than a distillation of his relevance. Thus we have his social opinion of Thomas Edison, his work as a technical adviser to a random person (or company, it's unclear) named Trevor Williams, his seat on a committee charged with standardizing small screws, his six month stint at a school that shut down, his "inconclusive" results in "an investigation of psychic phenomena", his failed attempt to make synthetic rubber, his creation of a rat trap, his diving trip in Haiti, his thoughts on America, his failure to sell an invention, and—in the final job given for Barr—that he was a research assistant, hardly an indication of notability for one who was then in his 50s. What we don't have is a true indication of who Barr was—was he a "polymath," as the lead claims, or an itinerant jack of all trades and master of none?—any information about the last third of his life, or even a non-primary source for his full name. In removing the "better source" tag that had been placed here, David Eppstein stated that "The better source tag is a GA blocker, and shouldn't be. If you think the better source actually exists, prove it." Yet while a lack of reliable information is always disappointing, this statement gets the GA process backwards; an article is determined to be a good article once it meets the criteria listed at the top of this page, not when its author determines that meeting the criteria is not possible.

There are also smaller problems with the article. For one, assertions are sometimes given a specificity not warranted by the sources, and for another, the final line of the article—"he was born to live in the smoking rooms of intellectual clubs in London or New York"—reads like a compliment, when a look at the source makes clear that this is Whitehead's way of calling Barr irrelevant, not to mention a braggart and a bore. The main problem, however, is that there is barely enough information presented about Barr to sustain a start-class article on him, let alone a good one. --Usernameunique (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Although Usernameunique is so far the only reviewer to provide substantive in-depth feedback about the article (and thanks for that), this and their previous cleanup-tag spree on the article have the appearance of attempting to torpedo this nomination in retaliation for Template:Did you know nominations/Caroline Brady (philologist), in which I (the nominator of this article) and EEng (the other main contributor to this article) were quite critical of a different article created and nominated for DYK by Usernameunique. To respond to some specific points, though: "Whitehead's way of calling Barr irrelevant, not to mention a braggart and a bore": yes, clearly. But we don't write only about saints here. The same goes for the complaint that Barr did many things of dubious import — we are writing about what the sources tell us about Barr, not about what we would want him to be, and this is supposed to be a nomination for good article, not for a good person. Some more careful attention to the specific GA criteria, and about how well the present writeup meets those criteria, would be more helpful than complaints about Barr's character. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:04, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

David Eppstein (and Wilhelmina Will), in response to your request for "more careful attention to the specific GA criteria, and about how well the present writeup meets those criteria," I believe this article is far from broad enough (GA criterion #3), is not verifiable and suffers from original interpretations (#2), and is not neutral (#4). The reasons why are discussed in depth above. David, Barr's character is irrelevant, as you say, but his notability (or lack thereof), the article's highlighting of a claim that the sources don't support, and the fact that a quotation is taken so out of context as to reverse its meaning, are all problems that have not been addressed other than by questioning my good faith. Yet if this were true (n.b. the edit summaries for my contributions to the article show many improvements and corrections), you would undoubtedly be able to explain why the problems I described with the article are not issues at all. You yourself termed the article "a haphazard collection of anecdotes rather than something with actual structure" just last year. Many more anecdotes have been added since, but if anything, the fundamental issues with the article have only multiplied. --Usernameunique (talk) 05:52, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

"Broad enough" means that it covers the topics that can be sourced, not the topics that have no sources but you would like some mythical source fairy to provide sources for. And how can you simultaneously infer the intended meaning of the quote and argue that the article makes the meaning impossible to infer? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:06, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

In response to your question, David Eppstein, there's no inference; I obtained the source from my library. In full: "My private opinion is that Mark is going to pieces—or rather, that for years he has gone to pieces. I am very doubtful whether he will keep his post at the Business School here. His habit of exploiting his friendships, chiefly by way of borrowing but also in other ways, is getting him into difficulties. Anyhow, he will have another chance. But his vanity, and his habit of gaseously showing off in conversation, make him a bad colleague so far as I can judge from what I hear. He was born to live in the smoking rooms of intellectual clubs in London or New York." --Usernameunique (talk) 07:44, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

For sake

I just stumbled on this review, which is completely out of control now.

• Lingzhi's list has nothing to do with anything.
  • Publisher locations don't have to be used consistently
  • "Identifier/control numbers" don't have to be supplied
  • I can't make sense of the complaint about Who Was Who
• I have no problem asserting that Usernameunique's TLDR nonsense above is motivated by resentment over Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Caroline_Brady_(philologist). All that's needed to see that is his/her disingenuous statement that You yourself [i.e. David Eppstein] termed the article "a haphazard collection of anecdotes rather than something with actual structure" just last year. Yeah... last year -- when the article was 325 words [1]; it's now 1200 words [2]. Like I said: disingenuous.
  • The criticism about the "Born to live" quotation is valid, but easily fixed: I've removed it.
  • The rambling about notability shows misunderstanding of notability criteria; if UNunique wants to take this to AfD, we'll all get a good laugh.
  • As to the rambling about what's missing: we can only write up what sources tell us. Much of Barr's life is a mystery.

The GA criteria (which are intentionally narrow) are met, and the reviewer says so. End this circus. Drmies, perhaps you can supply the second opinion the reviewer has requested. EEng 05:38, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• Ha, I remember that DYK! Drmies (talk) 14:41, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

• OK, I got some comments (and you can see I made some minor edits as well). To start with Ling.nut's list, I would also be bothered by inconsistent citations: adding publisher's locations is an easy fix and keeps the commentator happy--it's like rubbing a chicken with oil before roasting (good for both cook and chicken). So add New York for Putnam in note 20, etc. I do NOT see the need for identifier/control numbers, not at all. But what is that "tag" in the "Selected publications"? Finally, the "Who was who" thing--Who's who is typically not accepted here; I never accept it. Plus, the only thing you need it for is the names of his parents. I'd cut that, but maybe it doesn't bother Wilhelmina Will, in which case it's fine. Finally, the critique that it's a concatenation of anecdotes--well, my life is too, and this one is better-sourced than mine. Yes, it's on the anecdotal side, by which I don't mean that the events are trivial but rather that a sort of overall narrative/biographical arc is missing. In part that's because of the sections, and this is always a tough choice: if the best-attested part is someone's work, do you lift that out of the chronology or not? The more information you have, the quicker one should do that.

  So, my dear EEng, here's the thing, and this is maybe not what you're looking for, but I think I'm meeting you halfway. If you take the entire Golden Ratio section, and the Other inventions section, out of that chronology and move it down, and replace them with a sourced platitude or two that addresses, generally, his life and career, I'd pass this without a problem. In other words, I do not agree with the critique that this is "just" a bunch of factoids, but I do think that the critique can be undercut by a slight structural shift. That's all I can do for you now--gotta get to work. Henry Louis Gates Jr. today. Drmies (talk) 14:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

OK, David Eppstein, you've got a light at the end of the tunnel. EEng 21:29, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

@Drmies: you mean something like this? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:15, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

This will be my final comment here.

1) The idea that Barr was known, or notable, for his work on the golden ratio is still unsupported; it's not even in his obituaries. Much as it appears to be the interest of the authors of this article, it properly belongs with the other anecdotes if anywhere. Drmies, I'm not sure if that's what you're suggesting or not when you say to "move it down."

2) EEng#s, the part of my statement that you did not quote was the part that said "Many more anecdotes have been added since, but if anything, the fundamental issues with the article have only multiplied." That's directly responsive to what you say I ignored, i.e., that "the article was 325 words; it's now 1200 words." Further, you may recall doubts about Barr's notability on the talk page, for you yourself replied underneath them. If there is any disingenuousness here, it is not mine.

This has been an unpleasant experience. Good luck with the rest of the article and review. --Usernameunique (talk) 22:32, 19 April 2018 (UTC)