Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Historical coats of arms of the U.S. states (illustrated, 1876)/archive1

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

The list was promoted by Crisco 1492 06:11, 21 September 2014 [1].

Historical coats of arms of the U.S. states (illustrated, 1876)[edit]

Historical coats of arms of the U.S. states (illustrated, 1876) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Godot13 (talk) 00:14, 9 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list because... The nominated list briefly discusses U.S. state coats of arms, distinctions between arms and seals, and some of the notable people involved with design (and some of the mistakes that were made). The authority and regulation of arms/seals are described. The illustrative center-point of the nomination are the restored full color illustrations from State Arms of the Union, by Henry Mitchell, published by Louis Prang in 1876. Sources indicate that only 20 copies of this book (of less than 10 pages) are reported to exist in libraries across the United States. The illustrations are matched with Bureau of Engraving and Printing proofs of the State arms. Godot13 (talk) 00:14, 9 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Reywas92[edit]

  • I noticed the article's title has been changed; I would suggest just Historical coats of arms of the U.S. states, as the article is about the coats of arms in general, not just those specifically in the book.
  • Heraldic, coat, and jousting in the first section should be lowercase, though most of that paragraph isn't exactly relevant. Reywas92Talk 13:15, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reywas92- I've edited the paragraph to remove less relevant information (and correct the caps issues). I am concerned that removing the date from the title would create a scope far broader than intended. Thanks for your comments. They are, as always, appreciated.-Godot13 (talk) 18:36, 23 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Nikkimaria[edit]

Assorted comments. I don't spend much time at FLC so if anything is way off base just say so.

  • Given both the length of the article, I would suggest expanding the lead
  • The last sentence of Arms versus seal is not a complete sentence - corrected
  • First sentence of design should not have mid-sentence caps, those aren't proper nouns in this context. There are several other instances of inappropriate capitalization - corrected, along with several others
  • Why use DMY for a US topic? MDY is more common in the US - I agree, however I hope that this list will be part of a Featured Topic in the near future. Three other FLs I have written/contributed to (that would be in the same proposed topic) are all in the DMY format. Trying to be consistent.--Godot13 (talk) 21:46, 11 September 2014 (UTC) [reply]
  • Generally I think a bit more copyediting is in order - the prose could flow better and be clearer at times. The Instances... section in particular needs some massaging. See also "a similar copy of this book was described by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association described" and other issues
  • Why do you have complete legal citations inline when all other citations are footnoted? - corrected
  • Suggest using {{convert}} to translate measurements - done
  • "20 copies exist in all libraries across the United States" - any non-US?
  • Don't include links in See also that were already included in the article. - corrected Nikkimaria (talk) 05:08, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks Nikkimaria for the comments, I will work on it over the next few days. Could you clarify two things please: "Given both the length of the article," was there something else also? You suggest more copyediting in a particular section, but don't mention which... Thanks again.-Godot13 (talk) 22:44, 9 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • I was going to mention the amount of "readable prose" (which differs from byte count), but then noticed that this article has proportionately more readable prose than most lists I see. The section in question is Instances of design inaccuracies. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:08, 10 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • Edits in progress.--Godot13 (talk) 03:04, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • Hi Nikkimaria- I think I've addressed most of your comments in italics above. I could not find any comprehensive library tools for searching outside the US so I'm not sure about that figure. I've done some copyediting and rewriting. I added two or three sentences to the lead (not enough?) If there are more specifics, or I haven't been clear above, please let me know. Many thanks--Godot13 (talk) 20:54, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
            • Hey Godot, I wonder if you could expand the second para of the lead a bit more? As to non-US holdings...I'm kind of torn. I realize that finding such holdings can be quite difficult; however, since Worldcat does show at least one non-US holding, I don't think we can just ignore the issue. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:41, 14 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
              • Hi Nikkimaria- I tweaked the lead a bit, and removed the Worldcat fact/ref. I feel less confidant making statements about the entire world's library system and their holdings... And honestly, I don't even know what "20 copies" means (i.e., where does that rank in terms of scarce, rare, extremely rare, etc.)--Godot13 (talk) 23:19, 14 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
                • Okay, that seems reasonable. The lead looks better now, thanks for your work on it. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Lady Lotus[edit]

A lot of my work is film related, but from what I could tell everything was very nicely sourced, the only things that I would mention is that maybe the images be the same size for consistency. One table's images are 125px and another table is 200px. Also, the names from the sentence "A few of those involved in the design of state arms and seals include (but is not limited to):" I would narrow down some of the names just so it doesn't borderline WP:LISTCRUFT. And then add alt text to File:Great Seal of Ohio actual view.jpg, after that, I support. LADY LOTUS • TALK 18:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Lady Lotus-I changed the image size as much as possible to be a uniform 200px, but I had to alter the Colonial Rhode Island size a bit so as not to throw off the spacing of the table. I re-enlarged the lead image only because at 220px the title was not clearly visible (there is some discretion over image size). Added the alt text, and reduced the list of state seal/arms contributors to the most historically notable. I hope these changes meet with your approval. Thank you again for reviewing this list.--Godot13 (talk) 08:33, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Support, good job :) LADY LOTUS • TALK 11:10, 12 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SNUGGUMS[edit]

  • Looks very nice, I just have one concern: If this is a US-related topic, why is the article using Day-Month-Year format when US standards are Month-Day-Year? I see Nikkimaria also asked this. Snuggums (talk / edits) 03:03, 21 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Snuggums- Thanks for taking a look. I understand the concern and I tried to address it above in my response above. I have written/re-written three featured lists on U.S. currency and they each use the DMY format. It has always been my intention to create a featured topic on U.S. Banknotes. While not directly about currency, this list does include (for comparison) the engraved arms found on the reverse of the first three series of U.S. National Bank Notes. I would like to include it in the featured topic in the future and it is strongly encouraged that the formatting be consistent throughout. I am not saying that I absolutely opposed to changing this, but I fear it will create issues down the road. I hope that answers your question. Many thanks.--Godot13 (talk) 03:48, 21 September 2014 (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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