Wikipedia:Peer review/Garamond/archive1

Garamond

I've listed this article for peer review because it's just gone through GA, and Casliber (who reviewed it) recommends that I now consider moving forwards to FA. (That would be my first FA so I'm less familiar with the procedure; I also have two more font GAs in the queue - Gill Sans and Bembo - and am keen to start reviewing, so am also keen to see feedback which can help me with those goals.) Am interested in suggestions for extra topics to mention or sources to add in particular, but all round open to suggestions. The article was described as a bit confusing during the GA review and I hastily expanded it, almost doubling it in size in fact, so there's probably a lot of room for recommendations on style too. If it's OK, I've put in comments below each point made by reviewers in italics. Thanks, Blythwood (talk) 13:46, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

• Note to mods: I'll close this in a few days maybe, perhaps after the weekend. Activity seems to have died down now and I will be putting up Gill Sans for a read, another article I'd love to see get to FA. Nonetheless, any further reads and reviews still greatly welcomed, since I think this is a subject with potential to be a lovely FA candidate. Blythwood (talk) 22:44, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

@Cassianto:, @Eric Corbett:, @Brianboulton:, I reviewed this for GA and found it fascinating. Novel topic to work on and might benefit from extra eyes....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:23, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Oops, forgot @Ealdgyth: as it is sorta historical....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:22, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments: I picked this up from Cas Liber's ping. It looks an interesting subject. I don't have time for a full review but here are a few points:

• Is it a good idea to introduce Claude Garamond so bluntly as "French artisan..."? It seems a trifle dismissive.
  • Will think about this. I wanted a word that emphasised that he made metal type master punches by physical work, engraving them with a needle file in fact, rather than just by drawing them out on paper or suchlike. Punchcutter is too technical, engraver not quite right either. I will think about it.
• I got very muddled reading the "Original type" section. I wasn't sure what was meant by the heading, and the text seems rather a mish-mash of facts in a fairly random order.
  • Yes, this is a problem as what exactly Claude Garamond did is somewhat obscure. To be quite honest, by the late nineteenth century, Garamond had become a 'brand' for the Good Old Days of type design, and his real contributions took a lot of research to disentangle - see Warde and Vervliet. I actually think the ordering is defensible: overview, main influence on him and his contemporaries' work, career, death. Open to opinions, though.
• I wouldn't use "famously" which smacks of WP:WEASEL
  • True. De Aetna is notable as despite being this very minor trial printing it was apparently used as a major source of inspiration by French printers for the next half-century, but this wasn't the best way to say it. Rephrased and will continue to think about this - I might think about writing an article on De Aetna. One snag there is that as I don't know a translation of its content, any article would really just be on the details of the book's printing, which seems a bit myopic.
• In the sentence: "A document called the Le Bé Memorandum (based on the memories of Guillaume Le Bé, but collated by one of his sons around 1643) suggests that he finished his apprenticeship them" the pronoun "he" is not clearly defined. I also think the last word is an error.
  • Yes thanks - fixed.
• I think the quotation from Mosley is too long – 50% of the section. Quotes should be generally confined to short, arresting statements or phrases, rather than explanations; generally, paraphrasing is preferred.
  • OK, will think about this. Mosley is a lovely writer and I wanted to include a quote from him, but agreed that this is perhaps undue.
• I'm not sure whether placing this timeline in the middle of the article is a good idea. Surely these details are found in the article, so this is a kind of internal summary. Is this necessary?
  • I know it's a bit unusual. I added it during the GA process when the original GA review found the article confusing and hard to follow, so I think might still be a good idea. (I got the idea from writing the Bembo article, where it's almost essential as that article's content flips backwards and forwards in history a lot.)
• Personally I dislike "In popular culture" sections, especially when they appear as bullet-point lists. Recommend that you convert to prose, although some of the items appear somewhat trivial.
  • Yes, this is a mess. None of this is mine, it was twice this size when I took on getting the article to GA and I felt that these were the ones worth keeping. While I'm open to input, it's such a mixture I can't imagine fashioning it into coherent prose.
• The gallery may be overstocked, especially with lengthy captions in some cases. Are all these images necessary?
  • True. Again, a quickly added response to the GA review comment that the article was hard to understand. Some of these could be moved, but I just didn't have time during the GA review process to organise them better.

Sorry I don't have time for more comments. This is the kind of topic I like to see being developed, and I wish you well with it. Brianboulton (talk) 17:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• • Thanks anyway.

Cassianto comments: Like Brian, I just don't have the time for reviewing at the moment as real life is pretty hectic. Having said that this topic seems too interesting to pass up so I will have a scan through and fix anything obvious and comment briefly about things I can't mend. Cassianto^Talk 19:01, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

• Per MOS:DOB, check the 1495–1496 date format.
• Per WP:PEA, check the use of "famously".
  • Fixed.
• "Garamond was born perhaps around 1510" -- Would work just as well without "perhaps".
  • Maybe. I meant 'perhaps' in the sense of 'If you follow the modern thinking that traditional claims about his career have made got all the dates in his early career too early.' Will think about rephrasing.
• ...nor does "substantial".
  • Fixed.
• Is there anyway of avoiding the repetition of "Garamond" in the line: "The term Garamond is today mostly applied to Garamond's designs"? Especially seeing as the very next sentence starts with "Garamond".
  • Fixed.
• Fourth para ends without a closing citation
  • Will think about it. It's the kind of thing that's so obvious to printing historians you often wouldn't see an explanation in so many words!
• Why do you introduce the historian Harry Carter, but not Hendrik Vervliet, who is without an article and who would perhaps be more appreciative of an introduction?
  • Er...hasty rewrite during GA review? Good point - just fixed to 'historians Harry Carter and Hendrik Vervliet'.
• "The date of 1510..." -- Not really a date, more a year.
  • Fixed
• Be consistent with how you use the definite article. The French printer Jean Jannon uses one, but historian Harry Carter, doesn't.
  • Fixed
• "...commissioned to do printing" → "...commissioned to print".
  • Yes, this needs a discussion of what exactly he was printing and how controversial it was (conclusion of most historians: really actually not very). Will expand.
• Although it's ok as long as it's consistent, using the past tense, for me, is better; e.g: "The old-style typefaces of Garamond and his contemporaries and successors remained in use in printing for over two hundred years after Garamond's death, and became influential on Dutch printing during the Dutch golden age" would look better than the current: "The old-style typefaces of Garamond and his contemporaries and successors remained in use in printing for over two hundred years after Garamond's death, becoming also influential on Dutch printing during the Dutch golden age."
  • Fixed & expanded.
• While we're here, the "Dutch golden age" would be good for anything lesser than a featured article, but certainly not here.
  • OK, will think about rephrasing. Basically, in cultural history, this was a high point for the Netherlands' artistic and technical influence, so at this time printing throughout Europe apparently was highly influenced by Dutch craftsmanship, so statement is about right but needs a bit of rewriting. I think this is better now.

Comments from Tim riley

This is an excellent article, and in my view it would not take much to bring it up to FA standard. A few minor points:

• Duplicate links
  • We are asked in the Manual of Style to not to use repeat links to other articles: one link apiece from the lead and one from the main text. Here we have additional links from the text to:
    • roman
    • Greek alphabet
    • matrices
    • punches
    • matrices again
    • cutters
    • Mosley
    • Didot family
    • punches again
    • matrices again
    • Le Bé
    • Antwerp
    • Plantin-Moretus museum (three times)
    • Beatrice Warde
    • optical sizes
    • Linotype
    • Monotype
    • Stempel
    • Robert Granjon
    • optical sizes
    • Linotype again
    • American Type Founders
    • hot metal type
    • Linotype again
    • swashes
    • swash
    • Mosley again
    • Google fonts
    • Times New Roman
  • As well as the duplicates you might look out for everyday words such as "handwriting" that really don't need a link: see WP:OVERLINK.
    • Mostly fixed now, thanks.
• False titles
  • The article is well written, and it is a pity to spoil it with the tabloidese use of false titles here and there. For instance "the 16th-century French artisan Claude Garamond" in the lead dwindles to "French artisan Claude Garamond " in the main text – not an improvement, IMO. Similarly, "the French printer Jean Jannon" strikes a more elegant note than "Venetian printer Aldus Manutius". Etc, etc.
    • Thanks - will think about this. Some examples fixed. Also cut out some more of the asides and put them in the main article.
• Garamond's life and career
  • Third para, last sentence: does citation 3 cover the first part of the sentence as well as the second?
    • Yes - if you look at Google Books you can read the entire thing.
  • Fourth para: the Manual of Style bids us use double quotes rather than single. Similarly with 'Estienne typefaces' later and other similar incidences of single quotes.
    • OK - will look into this.
  • "The first Roman type designed by Claude Garamond has been suggested to have been a set..." - the prose gets rather tied up in knots here. Perhaps streamline a bit, on the lines of "It has been suggested that the first Roman type designed by Claude Garamond was a set…"
    • Fixed - thanks, same for some other stylistic issues.
  • Last para: you have two "howevers" in this para (and seven in the article as a whole). They can come to seem repetitive, and are seldom necessary. Worth a quick read through with pruning shears in hand, perhaps.
• Jean Jannon
  • if, as I take it, the article is in BrE you may like to follow the OED by hyphenating "north-eastern"
    • It was in AmE, I think, but since I've now written most of the article in BrE it's rather hard to change back. Let's stick with BrE as it's a European topic.
  • "the term has sometimes been claimed to have been coined by Cardinal Richelieu" – again, perhaps a bit convoluted: you could trim it to something like "the term has been ascribed [or attributed] to Cardinal Richelieu".
    • Done. I wanted to kind of make it clear that while I'm not sure where this comes from and it's appeared in some books, especially one popular one, it seems to be a myth.
• Revival era
  • "his work remained little-read" – I'm not an expert on hyphens, but I don't think you want one here.
    • It feels right to me? Little doesn't really work as a separate word here. I think it matches the pattern of 'little-known'.
  • "Beatrice Warde, later to become a prominent writer on printing in Britain, later recalled" – two "laters"
• Revival era, late 19th century to present
  • If BrE is indeed intended, it might be better to replace the American "advisor" with the British "adviser" (OED).
• Stempel Garamond
  • "interwar" – another word that the OED hyphenates.
• EB Garamond
  • The last words of the section could do with a citation, and also a date (see WP:DATED).
    • I don't know that there's a citation available: it just doesn't come with one in the release although I know Duffner has played with developing one. Feel free to download and check! I guess I can cite the specimen
• Printer ink usage
  • "Mis-interpretation" – one the OED doesn't hyphenate.
    • I've actually put this entire section into the 'popular culture' bit as it seems to be rather unscientific but was widely reported.
• In popular culture
  • I don't know that Foucault's Pendulum quite comes under the heading of "popular culture". And I'm not convinced we need the title in the original Italian as our WP article on the book uses the English version.
    • Agreed to both, but I'm don't think it makes sense to add an "in unpopular culture" section! Let's leave it. Changed title.
  • The second item on the list lacks a citation
    • Good point, will look for one.
  • "favorite" is not in a quotation, and should be Anglicised, I think.
    • Done.

That's all from me. Mostly quite minor points, but I hope you find them of some use. Tim riley talk 20:49, 10 February 2016 (UTC)