Talk:Hermann Alfred Tanner

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Hermann Alfred Tanner/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: RoySmith (talk · contribs) 19:11, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Starting review now. As a general comment, I've written an essay, WP:LANGCITE which I think would be valuable here. To be clear, the suggestions I make there are not WP:GACR, just my personal thoughts. RoySmith (talk) 19:11, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm excited to work with you! - I have added translated titles, and quotes with translations to the ones that I could put in without having to copy the entire thing.

General comments

• While not a WP:GACR, I encourage you to include alt texts for all images per MOS:ALT.
  • Added. - F

Lead

• Include dates of birth-death up front per WP:FIRSTBIO.
  • Done - F

Career

• The first sentence is hard to read. I would re-phrase it to eliminate most of the commas. Putting all the citations at the end of the sentence would also make it flow better.
  • Bifurcated - F
• I know this is an odd thing to say, but to my native American ear, "Simon" is a man's name, which makes the juxtaposition of "Romansh mother Simon Tanner" awkward. My first scan got me to "Romansh mother[2]", at which point it felt like the end of the sentence, with "Simon Tanner" introducing another person. It took me a while to realize I had parsed it incorrectly. I'm not sure what to do there; her name is her name.
  • An "and" was left out - oops! Fixed now - F
• Tanner completed secondary school... At this point, it's not clear if "Tanner" means Hermann Tanner or Simon Tanner. In a paragraph talking about multiple members of the same family, it works better to switch to using first names, so "Hermann completed secondary school...".
• namely Latin, Ancient Greek..., delete "namely"
• In 1901, Tanner helped his father... becoming its first managing What you mean to say is "Tanner became its first managing...", but there's so much distance between "Tanner" and "becoming", the subject-verb relationship has become unclear.
  • Done x3 - F
• Rephrase things to avoid the repetition of "was also" in two consecutive sentences. More generally, you use the phrase "was also" many times in the article. A more varied vocabulary would make for more enjoyable reading.
• wikilink Swiss Army and First World War.
• I think setting off the long a serious, highly trained officer ... quote with {{blockquote}} (as you do further down) will make it easier to read, although {{Text and translation}} might be better.
• according to historian Piotr Bednarz, I think this is pl:Piotr Bednarz (historyk), in which case add a cross-wiki link.
• Maybe wikilink "patent"?
  • All done - should I replace the second quotation with a {{Text and translation}} as well? - F

Personal life

• Tanner was for a period a friend of the mountain climber Christian Klucker makes me wonder what happened to end the friendship. Maybe just drop "for a period"? Also, you don't need "the" before "mountain climber".
  • Done - F

Works

• Not seeing any problems here

• Frzzl that does it for me for now. Work on the issues I noted above and ping me when you're done so I can do another pass. RoySmith (talk) 20:03, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
  • Sorry for being a bit late, done the suggested. - F

Second pass

• I took the liberty of making some edits to the first two paragraphs of Career. Let me know if you are OK with these changes.

• As for {{blockquote}} vs {{Text and translation}} I think the later works better in this case. Whichever you decide to use, use the same one for all your quotes. BTW, I should mention that I'm in awe of how many languages you have mastered. Other than my native English, I have enough Spanish to use a bus map or order a meal in a restaurant. I regret that I didn't apply myself harder when I was studying the language in school.

• In the lead, you've got He was also a supported of the constructed language Occidental. I assume that's supposed to be "supporter"?

• I made another edit to remove a few more extraneous also's.

That's it for now. Overall, I think this is a very nice article and I don't see any reason I won't be able to approve it once you've made this last set of changes. RoySmith (talk) 01:17, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much! (although I must say, "mastered"'s maybe pushing it a bit haha) - replaced the blockquote; thank you for introducing me to this new template - I like the look of it much better + I don't need to worry about whitespace! Typo's un-typoed. I like the feel of the new Career opening better: I caught a typo and moved the refs to the ends so as to not leave it bare - thanks for eliminating the also-s.

I see that you've navigated FAC before, so may I ask: what steps would you recommend to get an article like this to FA? Frankly, I'm terrified of the process, so I'm not sure. Should I use a Peer Review or something?  Frzzl  talk; contribs  01:52, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

I'll be approving this in a moment. Thanks for writing about this interesting piece of history. As for FA, well, there's a lot to say about that! I've got a draft of what I hope will become a Signpost article about it some day, so watch that space. I would definitely start with a peer review, for sure. If you haven't found it already, you might want to read over my FAC to get a feel for the process. One thing that'll probably be significant is checking your references. For this GA review, it was pretty much AGF that the sources supported what you wrote. For a FAC, they'll go over them in exquisite detail; @Eddie891 would be able to give you better advice than I can about how that process would deal with sources that are mostly not in English. RoySmith (talk) 14:58, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by PrimalMustelid talk 02:18, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that Major Hermann Alfred Tanner tried to get the the Romansh to speak Occidental, a constructed language? Source: Künzli, Andreas. "Das Jahrhundert des Esperanto: Internationale Sprache Esperanto im 20. Jahrhundert im Spannungsfeld von Politik, Gesellschaft und Wissenschaft" [A Century of Esperanto: The International Language Esperanto in the 20th Century in Areas of Tension of Politics, Society, and Science] (PDF) (in German). p. 5. Retrieved 10 September 2023. Auch Hermann Alfred Tanner (1873-1961), Pionier auf dem Gebiet der Farbennormierung, verbreitete Occidental unter den Rätoromanen [Also Hermann Alfred Tanner (1873-1961), Pioneer in the field of colour standardisation, spread Occidental among the Romansh]
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Tale of the Moon Cuckoo

Improved to Good Article status by Frzzl (talk). Self-nominated at 23:08, 3 November 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Hermann Alfred Tanner; consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
• Interesting: - See below
• Other problems: - See below

QPQ: Done.

Overall: I think the hook needs work. Too much here is confusing and difficult to understand. Why is it relevant that he's a major? The average reader won't know what Romansch are and probably don't understand what a constructed language is either. Overall, I'm not sure that this hook is engaging and helpful for a main page audience. (t · c) buidhe 23:54, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

• • Hi, thanks for the review. I completely agree with removing "Major", it's unnessesary and complicates the hook. I checked the hook with some other editors, and I'm honestly not sure that we an ethnic group and one of the major classifications of languages is too niche - they're both wikilinked, nontechnical, and isn't the point of DYK to learn new things? I can understand removing the mention of Occidental, as that will simplify it. What about an alt0a, "... that Hermann Alfred Tanner tried to get the Romansh to speak a constructed language?"
  • If you're firmly against this, I'll be putting a hook about his confrontationalism on Portal:Constructed languages, but I can see that that's definitely not suitable. Otherwise, I could try one about the colour compass, but it isn't really that interesting. What do you think?  Frzzl  talk; contribs  21:02, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

• • Hey @Buidhe:, are you still interested in reviewing this DYK? -  Frzzl  talk; contribs  15:08, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

I already reviewed it. I'm still not convinced that the alternative hook is suitable but if someone else sees fit to approve it I won't interfere. (t · c) buidhe 15:27, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

This isn't a review but I'm looking at the article. ALT0 and ALT0a both talk about him "trying to speak" a constructed language, but the article merely said that he spread the language among the Romansh people without saying he "tried" to do so. As for the hook, I think there's potential for ALT0a, but I would suggest adding additional context of both the Romansh people or Occidental in order to at least not leave unfamiliar readers in the dark. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:31, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. For any future reviewer:

ALT0b: that the Swiss commandant Hermann Alfred Tanner promoted an artificial language to the Romansh minority? Source: same as above; Romansh are <1% of Swiss population per "Ständige Wohnbevölkerung nach Hauptsprachen in der Schweiz" (XLS) (official site) (in German, French, and Italian). Neuchâtel, Switzerland: Federal Statistical Office. 21 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-07-11.

AlT1: ...that the Swiss mountaineer Hermann Alfred Tanner invented a compass to navigate colour harmony? Source: Bruckner, Albert (1938). Neue Schweizer Biographie [New Swiss Biography] (in German). Basel: Buchdruckerei zum Basler Berichthaus. p. 529. LCCN 38020112. OCLC 12852017.

ALT2: ...that the Swiss commandant Hermann Alfred Tanner spent most of the First World War as a journalist in Italy? Source: ibid.

If none of the alts seem passable, or there any any issues, please ping me  Frzzl  talk; contribs  18:12, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

All the new hook sound okay to me, though I'll leave the final decision to the reviewer. I've struck the other hooks to show they're no longer for consideration. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:06, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

All three hooks are short enough, AGF sourced, and interesting; my personal preference is ALT1. Good to go.--Launchballer 00:48, 27 December 2023 (UTC)