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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Her Majesty's Theatre

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 00:05, 22 February 2008.

Her Majesty's Theatre

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I'm nominating this article for featured article because it has been through a tough GA process; and I believe the article meets the criteria and is ready to go through this process. Kbthompson (talk) 14:19, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't "patent theatre acts" be capitalised?--Docg 18:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply It's not capitalised in the linked wiki article, and a quick check shows that it is not capitalised by either Britannica online, or the UK theatre museum. Glamorgan university, do ... my personal opinion is that Acts of parliament should be capitalised, but it's not - it involves the issue of Letters' Patent by the monarch. In order to avoid the issue, I've rephrased the expression. I hope you find the current form acceptable. Kbthompson (talk) 00:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks fine. I wasn't objecting, just questioning.--Docg 01:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. This is a decent article. I don't think the prose is great, but it is better than a lot of articles I've seen at FAC. Karanacs (talk) 15:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The prose needs work, and I am concerned that many of the sources are not reliable sources, and much information is not cited. I have listed a few examples of the prose issues below, but that list is not comprehensive. Basically, there is a lot of passive voice, a lot of repetition and a lot of very long unwieldy sentences.
    • Lead prose is not very compelling. A good copyedit might help it to reel you in a little more
    • Prose issue examples:
      • unnecessary repetition - "theatre has been home to a number of record-setting runs in theatre history, "
      • "The history of the theatre involves a series of struggles for control of its management and ownership, because several parcels of land had to be leased to build and expand it, and these separate leases, with varying mortgages and lease terms, caused ongoing disagreements among the owners and lessees." - very very long sentence. This could be reworded to be clearer
      • "has principally specialised "??? shouldn't this just be "specialised"
      • " The company had performed productions combining spoken dialogue with incidental music, but a taste was growing amongst the nobility for Italian opera, which was completely sung, and the theatre began to present these" - too unwieldy. Could be simpliefied to something along the lines of "Although previous ed productions combined spoken dialogue with incidental music, as the nobility began to clamor for Italian opera, the company began singing all of their dialogue." (my version isn't perfect either)
      • "described as showing " -> why not just "showing"
      • "Following his personal success with Rinaldo, Handel presented a series of over 25 of his operas, performed under his personal direction, by a Royal Academy of Music (known from 1734 as the Opera of the Nobility)[10] formed by subscription from wealthy sponsors, including the Prince Regent, to support Handel's productions at the theatre until 1739" --- ack, what a long, ungainly sentence!! I'm not entirely sure what it is saying.
      • "The two fell out, each planning to wrest control of the venture from the other" clauses don't work well together - did they fall out because they each planned to wrest control or did they each plan to wrest control because they were upset with each other (and fell out may be too colloquial)
      • "Meetings were attempted to reconcile the parties at Carlton House and Bedford House. " - did they attempt to have meetings or attempt to reconcile the parties?
      • More passive voice! "The stage was stormed by the audience" - "The audience stormed the stage" I like this sentence much better now :) Karanacs (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • "The Phantom of the Opera had its world première on 9 October 1986 at the theatre,[50] in which Michael Crawford earned an Olivier Award for his performance in the title role. " - Michael Crawford did not win his Olivier at the Theatre
      • "The setting of the fire, in the roof, had been deliberate" - why such passive voice? "The fire had been deliberately set on the roof"
  • All of the above have now been resolved. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:33, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Need non-breaking spaces between numbers and their qualifiers (such as 4 levels, 1216 seats)
    • Per WP:MOSQUOTE, the callout quotes (with the quotation marks) are generally not encouraged in wikipedia articles. Instead, for the long quotation use block quotes.
    • Need citation for "The theatre provided the first alternative to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and the Lincoln's Inn theatre (forerunner of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden). "
    • Need citation for "The theatre's site is the second oldest such site in London that remains in use."
    • Need citation for "These three post-interregnum theatres defined the shape and use of modern theatres."
    • Need citation for "At this time only a handful of patent theatres were permitted to perform serious drama in London, and lacking such a permit, the theatre remained associated with opera. "
    • Don't bold "The Queen's Theatre" in the article body. It can be bolded in the lead, but shouldn't be bolded here. (same for The Haymarket Ioera House)
    • See WP:MOSDASH; year ranges should be separated by an unspaced ndash;
    • In section "Vanbrugh's theatre: 1705", several of the paragraphs start with From/In and a date. Please try to vary this a bit.
    • I would remove the years from the history subheadings. They make it appear that the section only covers that year, which is incorrect.
    • Need a citation for: "At this time only a handful of patent theatres were permitted to perform serious drama in London, and lacking such a permit, the theatre remained associated with opera"
    • "He finally escaped his own creditors upon his election as member of Parliament " - did being a member of Parliament mean you didn't have to pay your debts?
    • Need citation for "The Italian composer Cesare Pugni, was appointed Her Majesty's Official Composer of Ballet Music from 1843 until 1850, and he composed the bulk of the ballets presented at the theatre"
    • Need citation for " Pugni remains the most prolific composer of the genre"
    • Quotations of less than 4 lines should be inline rather than offset
    • References are not formatted properly. Many are missing publishers or dates (even books need publisher information!!)
      • Done. Publishers/dates added, and we've formatted to the best of our ability.
    • Books need page numbers
    • These do not appear to be reliable sources:
      • victorianweb.org
      • www.arthurlloyd.co.uk
      • culturevulture.net
        • Done: All refs to culturevulture removed.
      • karadar.com
        • Done: All refs to karadar removed.
      • www.peopleplayuk.org.uk

Karanacs (talk) 19:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for taking the time to look into the article and the sources. As ever the intention is to improve the article, nothing else and I thank you for your suggestions.
I might say that victorianweb is an acknowledged source on matters of the Victorian era, using mostly primary sources - ie contemporary newspapers; the Arthurlloyd site, again drawers on contemporary sources to provide information on theatre history. In my experience, it is reliable. PeoplePlayUK is the website of the London Theatre museum, maintained by the the Victoria and Albert Museum. If the last is not a reliable source, what is? The majority of cites are covered by paragraph cites of the excellent Survey of London article on the theatre. That has been an extensive source used in paraphrase.
Thank you for a useful critique and I'll try to address your issues tomorrow. Kbthompson (talk) 00:53, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the explanation. I understand that it is more difficult to gain information about past eras, but I wonder if it would be possible to source the Arthurlloyd information from somewhere else? Can that information also be found in newspaper articles or books? The largest problem with websites is that there is no editorial control, which makes them less reliable than sources that do have editors or fact-checkers involved. Karanacs (talk) 16:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. The Arthurlloyd site is extremely informative and one of the most comprehensive sites on the internet about London theatres, containing numerous original images, quotes from contemporaneous materials and references to both the author's extensive collection of theatre programs and other materials, as well as lots of research. Why do you question its reliability? BTW, thanks for your excellent review and comments. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:11, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've replaced the ArthurLloyd references, but certainly feel as ssilvers that this is a reliable source. It's certainly the best theatre history site I've ever come across. Much of the information comes from contemporary theatre programmes and reviews that are reproduced on the site. Kbthompson (talk) 19:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are currently only two Arthurlloyd refs left in the article. Please let us know if you doubt their reliability. -- Ssilvers (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I misunderstood your description of "contemporary" as meaning NOW rather than "at the same time the play was performed". In that vein, then, I withdraw my objection to that site. Karanacs (talk) 19:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I went through and there were a couple where text had been shifted around, I've fixed it now. Thanks Kbthompson (talk) 19:28, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments on 1a. Needs a run-through by someone new. Much of it is well-written, though. Examples at random:
    • "large scale"—hyphenate. Done.
    • "... Tree. Tree ..." Done.
    • "Tree and the theatre were instrumental"—odd duo. Done.
    • "premières"—does MOS really say to use the diacritic?
      • Typically, in English, where it's a borrowed word from another language, the diacriticals are used. In fact, if it's missing my British-Irish spell checker marks it as an error. Your local mileage may vary ... depending on the size of your gallon? Kbthompson (talk) 20:39, 15 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The name of the theatre changes with the gender of the monarch, becoming the King's Theatre in 1714"—Clash of tenses (the present leaks into the second clause). Done.
    • "Most recently, the theatre was known as His Majesty's Theatre from 1901 to 1952"—Since the years are given, why the first two words as well?
      • If you cut the first two words, it would imply that these are the only two times when this happened - We don't want to name all the different periods when this happened in the LEAD. I would leave this one alone, unless you have another suggestion, Tony. I suppose the sentence could be cut....
    • "current capacity is 1,216 seats, and since 2000 ..."—Can you move the year away from the "1,216"? Done.
    • "over 25" (twice): it really would be nicer to say "more than 25". Tony (talk) 11:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC) Done.[reply]
Mos issues, resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notes, the following need review (perhaps Epbr123 will give feedback on these items):

  • Incorrect use of WP:MOSBOLD in "Second theatre: 1791–1867"
  • WP:MOS#Captions, punctuation, for example in "Performance" section
  • Citation formatting, publishers are not identified on many sources, was reliability of sources checked? See WP:CITE/ES. All publishers should be listed, as well as author and publication date when available. Also, accessdate should be given on all websources. This (New York Public Library, "500 Years of Italian Dance" ) for example, is an unformatted citation.
    • NYPL fixed, also I found one example of a pre-1900 book where a modern publisher was missing, are there any more I should attend to? Thanks. Kbthompson (talk) 00:14, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • As mentioned by Epb123, world-theatres.com is not a reliable source. Publishers need to be identified on all sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • OK, I replaced that ref with Operetta: A Theatrical History pp. 217. Sorry, perhaps I did not make myself clear. I went through the refs and only identified one without a listed publisher, which I added. I cannot see any others that are missing publication sources, or dates. Cheers. Kbthompson (talk) 13:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • OK, thanks for that clarification. I was looking at the information for books. The two you changed, was to move the publisher outside the link. I will go through them when I have a moment. cheers. Kbthompson (talk) 10:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • I finished up what I could, but there are about three different referencing styles and methods in use, with no consistency. In particular, there is a misuse of WP:ITALICS throughout. I cleaned them up to a point that's passable, but sustained attention to a consistent ref style is needed. More importantly, now that publishers are apparent, questions below about reliability of sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reliable sources and dead links mentioned by Epbr.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:52, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The captions and bolding have been fixed. Epbr123 (talk) 20:38, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments regarding images no longer being used from Elcobbola
  • Comment Criterion 3 concern:
    • Phantom.jpg has no fair use rationale, which is likely moot given WP:NFCC#8, which states "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding" (emphasis added). How does the Phantom of the Opera poster significantly (or at all, for that matter) increase our understanding of Her Majesty's Theatre? ЭLСОВВОLД talk 18:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I added a fair use summary. Phantom is currently enjoying an historic run at the theatre, and there is considerable discussion of this in this section of the article, so I think that the illustration is significant in illustrating this part of the article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 18:57, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the test is a significant increase in our understanding of the topic, which is the theatre, not the play(s) therein. Although there’s indeed discussion of the play’s run, seeing the poster provides no additional understanding of the theater. It's important to also note that the image's license tag says "to provide critical commentary on the film, event, etc. in question or of the poster itself, not solely for illustration". ЭLСОВВОLД talk 19:10, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The musical has been resident at the theatre since 1986. It would have no existence without the theatre - shall we remove the image, to which I certainly have no personal attachment. The point is to improve the article - does it improve the article? Does it have relevance? Is the image illustrative of the home of the production? Is the text critical commentary on the production? If I were marking this as an academic work, it would be fair use, but I'm not and I'm not an expert on US copyright law. It is not as though the image is used solely for illustration - tough call, please feel free to remove it. Kbthompson (talk) 00:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand and recognize the connection between the theatre and phantom. It needs to be understood that this is not a “personal opinion”; I’m merely trying to articulate the policy, which is explicitly clear that an “illustrative” purpose is not appropriate (this article is not critical commentary on Phantom). “Relevance”, as you've used it, is not pertinent to fair use and removal would improve the article by bringing it to compliance with copyright law. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 01:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kb, this has nothing to do with U.S. law on fair use. I am a lawyer, and the image certainly can be used under U.S. law. The question is whether it can be used under Wikipedia policy. While wikipedia policy is much more restrictive on what "fair use" images may be used in WP articles, I think this is a very close question, because the musical is so important to the theatre and constitutes a major part of the explanation of what has been happening at the theatre for the past two decades. As elcobbola said, the WP policy question boils down to: "Does the image add to the reader's understanding of the *section* of the article?" (The policy say article OR *section* last time I looked) I think that the image does add to a reader's understanding of the section, since the section focuses on Phantom. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 06:30, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful not to leave out the key word in the policy, “significantly”. The issue would be “does the image add significantly to the reader's understanding of the … of the article?” Do we have a better understanding of the theater because we can see the Phantom poster? Absolutely not. This issue, in itself, is subordinate to the issue of acceptable uses set forth in the license tag. There’s no point fighting tooth and nail over something so trivial; I’ll tag it with {{fairusereview}} so the discussion can move to a more appropriate forum. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 15:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So posted, see this edit. The process appears to see little traffic, so I don't expect timely resolution. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 15:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I believe there to be an unambiguous violation of criterion three; responses to concerns have not been based soundly in policy (e.g. the explicit “significant” contribution has not been asserted), but rather in personal opinions of what would “be nice”. Closer is certainly welcome to discount or disregarded my objection based on prevalent interpretation of necessity to conform to criterion three. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 15:58, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reliable sources, resolved, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reliability of sources Who is David Lewis and what makes http://www.nodanw.com/ a reliable source? What makes him a published expert in the field, and what is the fact-checking and editorial oversight of this website? I am unable to locate anything on that page which assures me that it is a reliable source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gosh, this site is a huge independent musical theatre site with information about hundreds of shows, composers, lyricists and authors, as well as licensing agents and general info for theatre companies. I don't know much about their editors or editorial policies, but it appears that the site is run by National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA), the main British musical theatre organization. We don't have anything like it here in the US - it's kind of a union of amateur musical theatre and drama companies. If you google any well-known show, information about it from this site will inevitably come up, and I don't recall ever seeing incorrect information at the site, although sometimes they focus on British productions. See their main index page: [3]. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry if I'm missing it, but I can't find in the links you gave the indication that nodanw.com is run by noda; can you point me at a direct URL? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know for sure. I think nodanw means NODA Northwest. Here's some circumstantial evidence: [4] and here, where NODA Northwest links back to this site. But I don't care where all this wonderful information comes from. I just know that I have used it over and over for two years, and it has always been helpful. I suppose that one could e-mail this David Lewis and ask about how the information is compiled and maintained. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Found it! See [5], where it says (scroll down): "The Musical Theatre Guide [linking to the site in question], in association with [Amazon.com] contains information on nearly 1500 shows, many available for performance. This information is constantly being added to and updated and will eventually include everything you'll need to know for you to be able to choose a show for your society to perform. Links to Arts Organisations, Cast Recording details, Lists of Rights Holders together with addresses and details of shows administered by each Rights Holder is also included." -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's good! Can ya'll try to finish up the ref cleanup to a standard format? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll do my best ... I made some infrastructure changes here last week, and I'm typing on a machine that is actually laid out in pieces across my desk! It's working for now, I shall try to put it back together (I know, that's too much information). cheers. Kbthompson (talk) 10:15, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've done all the ref cleanup/standardization that I can. Kb told me that he has no further ref cleanup ideas. If there's anything else that needs to be done to the refs, please let us know. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 21:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I’ve struck my oppose, as no image(s) with questionable fair use status are currently being employed. Strike is on condition that questionable FU image(s) return if, and only if, consensus determines FU claim(s) for this article is/are valid. ЭLСОВВОLД talk 21:46, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with leaving that decision to the appropriate forums. Kbthompson (talk) 00:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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