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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of National Treasures of Japan (sculptures)/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 The Rambling Man 15:50, 6 October 2009 [1].

List of National Treasures of Japan (sculptures)

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Nominator(s): bamse (talk) 22:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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I am nominating this for featured list because I believe that it is a valuable contribution to wikipedia. bamse (talk) 22:18, 10 September 2009 (UTC) [reply]

Resolved comments from Diaa
  1. The lead needs to have references for every fact. This is not the case here.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 17:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I added references to the lead now. Please let me know if I forgot to reference a fact. bamse (talk) 20:59, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. There should be images for the listed sculptures.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 17:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd love to put pictures, however I am concerned about the following:
    (i) Loading time of the page on slow internet connections. Please consider that there are 126 list entries where some of the entries cover more than one statue and could require more than one picture to illustrate.
    Loading time wouldn't be that bad it's mostly 140px or 200px image thumbs which wouldn't take that long to load. 126 is a big number but instead of describing the statues under "Image" I'd prefer having an image per statue (look at List of tallest buildings in New York City to see an example of a list which incorporates images.
    With one image per statue, I'd end up with much more than 126 pictures. How about one (characteristic) picture per one list entry (total of 126)? To avoid misunderstandings, "image" here is meant as in "image of a god" rather than in the photographic sense. I think the "image" column contains information which can not be replaced by pictures, so I will add a picture column. bamse (talk) 08:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    (ii) Availability of pictures and license problems. Except for the large Buddhas in Kamakura and Nara and the Usuki Buddhas, I suspect that there are not many pictures of these statues on wikipedia. Most of the statues are located inside temples or museums. From my understanding it is not legally allowed to upload pictures of art objects inside such buildings to wikipedia (please correct me if I am mistaken). In fact many temples don't allow photography of these statues. bamse (talk) 20:59, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Statues inside temples or museums aren't copyrighted. If u took a photo you can upload it. They can tell you not to shoot photos though... Look on Flickr for photos too. If not then just add the ones that are there.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 21:40, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That's promising. I will see what I can find. bamse (talk) 08:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I added a picture column with all the pictures I found on commons and uploaded some of my own. Will start having a look at the lead secion now.bamse (talk) 17:29, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. The Material, Size and every column should be referenced.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 17:02, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Not sure if I understand correctly. Do you mean that I should put references in each field of the table (7 x 126 = 882 references)? I referenced by line. A reference in the first (name) column is meant to reference the whole line, i.e., the reference is for one (group) of statue(s). Is it really necessary to repeat the same reference in each field of the line? bamse (talk) 20:59, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not necessary and not beneficial actually. But since I don't understand Japanese I didn't know that the info is referenced at the first column.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 21:40, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  4. The lead still needs considerable expansion since the list is pretty long. Compare to List of tallest buildings in New York City. The lead should be at least that big. One sentence (line) paragraphs should be expanded like the fourth paragraph in the lead. The first paragraph should also have another line. In any case, please expand the lead.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 21:40, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. bamse (talk) 08:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Remove "Lists of other National Treasures of Japan can be found in List of National Treasures of Japan." If you want a link to List of National Treasures of Japan then either incorporate it into the lead or add a "See also" section with this link.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 21:40, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. bamse (talk) 08:44, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Moved it to the "See also" section. bamse (talk) 17:29, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Very good idea. Will move the pictures out of the table. I've been looking all over the place but did not find many pictures which could be used without violating copyright; just a couple of old pictures and some of my own. In any case, the present pictures cover a good variety of different statues (different Buddhist images, different materials). bamse (talk) 19:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Is this how you imagined it? Truthkeeper88 is currently copy-editing the lead section. bamse (talk) 00:53, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes much better now.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 05:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Image column shouldn't be sortable
    Why not? It took me quite some time to make sorting work. It sorts differently to the name column, because some of the names don't reflect the name of the Buddhist image, e.g., "Great Buddha" versus "Amida Nyorai". Sorting of the Image column then collects all the Amida Nyorai together which the Name column cannot.bamse (talk) 09:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It's ok...--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. The sorting of the age column has bugs. When sorting 711, 733 etc. are after 8th Century while 8th century is after 7th century. This is because 711 is seen as larger then 8. You need to add sorting keys.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 05:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    There are lots of sorting keys in this table. As far as I can see, sorting works as described in the "Usage" section: "sorts by year. If only a period is known, sorts by the start year of that period." So "8th century Nara period" sorts as "0710" (710 was the start year of the Nara period), "8th century Asuka period" sorts as "0700", (Asuka period was until 710). Of course I could have "8th century" always sort as "0700" independent of the period, but why not be a tiny bit more precise? There might be more such occurences where I made the sorting year more precise based on the birth date of the sculptor for instance. Let me know if you think that this way of sorting is not good. bamse (talk) 09:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    WOW, I didn't expect the table to be so good sortable. Really good work on that.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. To make the Present location column correctly sortable you should have first the prefecture, then the city, then the place.
    There are sorting keys present which make just that. Let me know if you noticed any inconsistencies. bamse (talk) 09:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  4. In Image you sometimes use seated and sometimes sitting wouldn't it be better if this was standarized? "seated Chishō Daishi" why isn't "seated" capital?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Add Alt text to the images, so people with screen readers could know what the image contains.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 05:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll do that. bamse (talk) 09:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. bamse (talk) 18:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  6. I suggest instead of "Age" - "Date", since it gives the date of the creation of the Statue.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. bamse (talk) 12:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Since "Size" is mainly about the "Height" could u change the header to that?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. bamse (talk) 12:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  8. I really don't like "Image", it's confusing because I expect to see an image of the sculpture but only the position of the Sculpture and its pose is mention. Could it be changed to "Sculpture" or "Pose" or something saying what this column is about?--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Changed to "Pose". bamse (talk) 12:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. "Together, with the 37 entries located in Kyoto Prefecture, they make up the bulk of this list." Please don't refer to the list, reword.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 05:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Reworded to read: "...they make up the bulk of sculptural National Treasures". bamse (talk) 19:55, 28 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. References that you use extensively like ""仏教索引" could be made as general references in the References section. See List_of_tallest_buildings_in_San_Diego#References as an example of splitting general from specific references.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 05:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. "Kouzou Ogawa; Nobuko Seki," needs to be verifiable please add the page used for every reference. For example Ogawa 2006, p. 10. Yes use {{Harvnb}}.Then create a sources section with books used.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 05:15, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I am not aware of a consensus for using one reference style over another, but ok. I won't have access to the book before October though. bamse (talk) 09:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not about the style. Use whatever style u want. However you need to give the referenced pages so that one doesn't have to keep searching in a book to find the info.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 10:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I see. It'll take a month or two before I can do much about it. bamse (talk) 12:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess till then the current reference would suffice. Please specify the references as soon as you can. Till then though I think this List still meets the Featured list criteria and should therefore be featured. Support --Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 23:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support, all issues resolved. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved issues, Dabomb87 (talk)
Comment "The List of National Treasures of Japan (sculptures) contains all the sculptures (彫刻, chōkoku?) designated as National Treasures by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of the government of Japan. " This seems like a horribly forced beginning to the lead along the lines "This is a list of X". We don't start FLs like this anymore; see recently promoted lists for examples of more engaging starts. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:19, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There's also quite a bit of formatting work to be done. I know it's tedious, but I don't know of any scripted way to do it. First, the main table needs conversions for all its measurements. Then, sentence fragments should not have periods at the end. Finally, you need centered em dashes in blank cells. I've done a sample edit to part of the table at User:Dabomb87/Drafts. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'll go ahead and do this tedious work. At least it'll give me a break from adding alt-texts to images... I'll also think of a new thrilling start for the lead. BTW, I copied a new lead section from Truthkeeper88's sandbox and thereby killed some of your edits. Sorry for that. I tried to fix it. bamse (talk) 15:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that some of the recently promoted lists start like (for "List of X"): "X is ...", not much better than saying "in the list of X there are..." in my opinion. Anyway I will probably just start the lead with the history section (presently third paragraph) and move the first two paragraphs after the history. bamse (talk) 15:59, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I added centered em dashes in blank cells and conversions for all measurements. Only thing left is to remove the periods. bamse (talk) 18:52, 20 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I should be able to support soon after that is fixed. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:44, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Removed periods. I hope I caught all of them. bamse (talk) 11:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The lead still needs to be tweaked, though. One more thing; can you spell out JAANUS in the publisher of the reference? Also, I went through and unitalicized the names of what I believed to be names of websites and organizations, which are not italicized. If any of them were in fact newspapers, magazines, or books, please accept my apologies and feel free to re-italicized them. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The lead is still being worked on here. It should be ready soon. bamse (talk) 08:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The new lead is there now. Also spelled out JAANUS. bamse (talk) 16:29, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your patience, just a couple more details: the alt text is very good (I tweaked the map's alt text); the only issue is that information about how the image was made, such as "black and white photograph", is unnecessary. One other thing—image captions that are not complete sentences should have periods at the end, such as "Nine-faced Kannon from Hōryū-ji with eight faces on her head." Dabomb87 (talk) 19:48, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. bamse (talk) 20:34, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources look good. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:20, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
    • "List" - Perhaps there is a better name for the section, like "Treasures" or "Sculptures"?
      Changed to "Treasures". bamse (talk) 07:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the "Remarks" column, some of the notes begin with a capital letter, while others begin with a small case letter. You should be consistant.
      Fixed. bamse (talk) 07:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Are there any more images than the ones in the article? If so, would it be possible to embed them in the table?
      Unfortunately there are no more images available that I am aware of. Following a comment by Diaa abdelmoneim (see above under "resolved comments"), I spend quite some time looking for more images on flickr, in my own images and old books. Unlike 2D art (paintings), for which the PD-Art tag makes basically all images of old (2dimensional) art available, it is not easy to find usable pictures for 3D sculptures. There is an old version ([2]) with pictures embedded in the table. Because there are rather few images, the present version with pictures out of the table looks better in my opinion. (Also see the discussion above) bamse (talk) 07:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The name column makes for some difficult reading. Could you put line breaks in between the English names and the Japanese text?
      I could, however the table will turn out even longer and long names will still be split over several lines. Not sure if it is important: I currently used the Template:Nihongo, which associates the strings with English/Kanji/Romaji. If I removed the nihongo templates and put line breaks, all text (Japanese Kanji and Romaji included) would appear the same. Shall I still put those line breaks? bamse (talk) 07:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I can understand why the names have Japanese translations, but is it really necessary for there to be Japanese text in the other columns? It makes the list rather cluttered.
      In the "Present location" column, I used the Japanese reading for place names that don't have a wikipedia article yet in order to clearly identify the place and to avoid misunderstandings. In some cases both the English name and the Japanese reading (text in italics) are used in English language. In the "Material" column I used the Japanese names for some techniques because a specific Japanese technique is meant here: "Gold leaf over lacquer" might be a technique used in other countries, while "shippaku" is a specific Japanese version of this technique. I could remove the Kanji from the Material column if you think they are confusing but would like to keep them in the Location column for the reason above, unless you insist. Eventually there will be articles on all the places and the Kanji can be removed. bamse (talk) 07:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • -- Scorpion0422 01:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I'm satisfied with all of your answers. Great job. -- Scorpion0422 00:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Extraordinary list, accompanied well by their images. My only suggestion for improvement would be to move the last paragraph of the lead to the beginning of the lead. Since it is a list of national treasures, I think it makes more sense to define the criteria of the list before discussing the historical development of Japanese sculpture. Geraldk (talk) 22:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Glad you like it. Indeed the criteria definition used to be at the start of the article ([3]). However I moved it to the end of the lead following a suggestion by Dabomb87 (see "Resolved issues, Dabomb87" above). Other featured lists use a similar structure for the lead, so I would not want to change it back. bamse (talk) 21:15, 5 October 2009 (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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