Talk:Condado Vanderbilt Hotel

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Condado Vanderbilt Hotel/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Pgallert (talk · contribs) 08:02, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

• I'll be reviewing this article. --Pgallert (talk) 08:02, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I'll put this on hold for now as the suggestions in the DYK review very likely will lead to a substantial change in the article. --Pgallert (talk) 11:21, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Fair enough. — DivaKnockouts 12:51, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
      • Congrats to the DYK, will now take up the review. First, I'll have a few more preliminary concerns, see below. --Pgallert (talk) 10:58, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Preliminary suggestions

This is not yet the result of my review, just a few preliminary suggestions for improvement. Please note that some of them might not strictly be enforceable under GA assessment, they are just thoughts and suggestions.

1. The picture subscripts are sloppy and somewhat worded in a strange way:
   • The hotel cannot have been under construction in 2006
   • Real photo post card dating back - Better perhaps: 1923 real photographic post card of the hotel
   • Condado Beach in San Juan, Puerto Rico showcasing to the right - Better perhaps: The 11-storey Condado Vanderbilt Hotel tower (right) on Condado Beach
2. The hotel has a web site that could be included as external link.
3. I'm really a bit disturbed about the historic picture and its fair-use rationale, but I would have to read a bit deeper through the relevant policies. My initial concerns are:
   1. The replaceability rationale is wrong. While the building has changed, the post card has not, and could be scanned again.
   2. The url does not lead to a page containing the picture.
   3. How could the Rodriguez Archives claim copyright on a work that they neither produced nor changed?
   4. Should the postcard not rather be in the Public Domain, due to its age?
   5. Would this photo perhaps be a better alternative? A case could be made for it to be in the Public Domain, likewise due to its age.

--Pgallert (talk) 12:26, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

• Okay, I've addressed you issues regarding the photo captions. (As my English is not the best.) Now, I didn't know about the "replaceablitly" part, I took that as "could there be another free picture of the hotel before it was modified from its original state". Considering that the image is from March 1923 and I believe the requirements for public domain are before January 1, 1923. I have removed the image from the article for now. Since the one you proposed is from 1922 it should be in the public domain. One thing though, it looks more like a painting than an actual photo. — DivaKnockouts 15:24, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Some more simple things to improve are:

• One link to a disambiguation page needs fixing. Looks to me as if Mr Gonzales is none of the already listed people.---Does he need to be linked, is he likely to be found notable?
  •  Done
• Not really happy with the section named "background". Actions have backgrounds, but hotels? Could be "History" instead but then a number of expressions in present tense (garden content, terrace) would not fit.
  •  Done
• Talking about the garden: In the reconstruction picture it looks as if there was not much left of it in 2006. Are the descriptions of it still current? Otherwise they should be in past tense.
  •  Done
• U.S. National Register of Historic Places mentioned in lead and infobox but not in the text. Also, forgive my ignorance of geography, it took me a while to figure out why a hotel in Puerto Rico would be on the NRHP. Can the information that Puerto Rico is US territory be somewhere incorporated?
  •  Done
• Sourcing of "the finest restaurant in Puerto Rico" to a tourism brochure, that's a bit thin. If this is a majority view, more such statements could be found, 19 Nineteen could be a redlink, and 19 Nineteen would be an important aspect of the hotel and deserve a paragraph on its own. Otherwise, the statement should be relative to the institution that made it like by Tursmo, the Puerto Rico Tourism Company.
  •  Done
• Why would such an important hotel have been closed down for a decade? Also, the timing in the Renovations section does not add up: Closed 1997, a decade out of service, 10 years of renovation: That makes 2017, not 2013.
  • No idea. Renovations did not immediately begin in 1997 when it closed in 1997. They began in 2003 hence the 10 years of renovations. However, some sources claim the hotel shut down in 1993.
    • This source says why it closed down. With almost 30,000 Google hits maybe some more background can be established?
• I still don't see the relevance of The renovation project was financed by the Government Development Bank and the R-G (Premier Bank) which provided a loan of US$92.5 million. Following the acquisition of the R-G Bank by Scotiabank, by which time 90% of the renovation had been completed, a loan was provided by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
  • How is this not relevant?
    • Unless the hotel now has a Scotiabank Room, and we want to explain why, it does not matter much which bank or fund financed the renovations. We also don't mention whether the builders used MAN trucks or Mercedes, even if we had a source for that. The phrase describes nothing about the hotel, and the Renovations section currently makes up a third of the article text, which gives it too much weight.
• Generally the article is overlinked (e.g. marble, mosaic, aviator, gambling) and overreferenced (refs to the same source within the same paragraph, without a direct quote to be supported. All those refs could be combined at the end of the respective paragraph, but check first if some of the overly long paragraphs could not be split.)
  • Delinked. To my knowledge the latter isn't good practice on WP.
    • Well, it is done all the time, but I guess that's personal preference. There are still several sequences (current footnotes 3, 5, 6, 11) that look like some text[footnote], some other text[same footnote], some other text[same footnote], that's overkill. But don't remove them just yet, as some paragraphs will have to be split anyway.
• The lead says four restaurants, the body mentions five that are all newly built. Surely the hotel had restaurants before the renovation? Which ones?
  •  Done & No mention of the ones before.
    • By the way, the restaurant calls itself 1919 not 19Nineteen, I guess after the year the hotel was built.

Thanks for the work so far, cheers, --Pgallert (talk) 10:58, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your review. — DivaKnockouts 01:30, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Structure

The massive paragraph in "History" lumps several things together: when and by whom it was built, famous guests, what its importance is, how it looked in 1919, and several name- and owner changes. That should be more logically grouped to have a consistent flow of prose. Maybe three paragraphs:

• Construction and design
• Vanderbilt family and later name and ownership changes
• Importance (first casino, National Register, first high-end hotel, etc)

Omissions

Small things to be added:

• This page contains several hints. Even if it is the hotel's own page, one could use it to support non-contested facts. E.g., that the hotel was declared a cultural heritage by the Governor in the 1970s, that Warren and Wetmore was the architect firm, that 80 rooms were added in the 50s, and so on.
• Nowhere in the article does it say that the hotel is situated on the Atlantic Ocean.
  •  Done
• This source mentions numbers of rooms and suites after renovation, currently missing. It also mentions the 1919 and its chef again.
• This source stresses the importance of the CV for the tourism in Puerto Rico, albeit shortly.

Expansion suggestions

The article is still very short. I feel the following topics need to be covered to fulfill the broadness criterion (will add to that list during the course of the week):

• 1919 restaurant. The chef Juan José Cuevas is apparently quite well-known, having worked at several Michelin starred restaurants before. Also won the Chef de l’Avenier (Chef of the Future) in 2009.
  • I feel that the restaurant and chef information is irrelevant to the hotel itself. — DivaKnockouts 18:10, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Hmmm, the chef maybe, but the restaurant is part of the hotel's amenities like tennis courts or ball rooms. I suggested this because from what I have read, a high-end restaurant's popularity depends very much on the person who's actually chef. --Pgallert (talk) 06:41, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
• One paragraph on where it is situated, what the characteristics of the Condado area are, that the name "Condado" is there because the suburb has this name, and that the hotel is there because Condado is a posh suburb that lures tourists. Can be compiled from the existing sources, and can be used to de-clutter the lead.

Pgallert, I would like to thank you for the time you have invested in this GAR. However, I formally would like to withdraw and have you fail it as I'm very busy with other projects. I was really hoping for a straight shot through but when time permits I will return to the article. Thanks. — DivaKnockouts 13:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok, as you wish. Thanks for the work so far which I believe has improved the article significantly, compared to its status during DYK. Before resubmitting, please consider to rewrite the lead in a way that it only summarises the article without introducing solitary facts.

I fail this GA nomination per request of the main author. --Pgallert (talk) 14:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)