Wikipedia:Peer review/Rosendale Theatre/archive1

Rosendale Theatre

This peer review discussion has been closed.
This article (15kB of prose) just passed a GA review, and I'd like to get further input before taking it to FAC. --Gyrobo (talk) 23:15, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Brianboulton comments: This looks an interesting article. The first thing I noticed about it was its structure. After the lead, it is mainly organised in three subsections of a large "History" section; two of these subsections are rather long, at around 870 and 1030 words respectively. I'm not sure this is the most advisable or imaginative way of presenting the text, and it would be worth considering a restructure. One possible approach would be to combine the present short "Building" section with the "Construction and early use" subsection to form an "Early history" section. The present Building section is very sketchy, and doesn't provide dates, so it's not clear if it's the 1905 building that is being described. This information would be better placed within a section describing the early years of the theatre. The present "Construction and early use" subsection is very thin, and perhaps could be expanded. You should also consider subdividing the two long sections, so as to assist navigation through the article.

• The Building section was added as a result of this assessment. In a nutshell, it duplicates content that was present throughout the rest of the article. I've seen it as superfluous, but as the primary author, I thought I was too close to be objective. If you don't object, I will gladly remove it. --Gyrobo (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

As to prose, I have only had time to look at the lead in detail. Here are a few issues:-

Lead

• "The building was initially opened..." The words "was initially" are superfluous

• Done. --Gyrobo (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• "The casino was eventually taken over by the local government, and used to house the town's fire department." Can "eventually" be fixed by a date? Also, I imagine that it was the whole building, not just the casino part, that was taken over.

• I only have one source for this, and it isn't very specific. There may not even be records of this; the 1955 floods destroyed many town and village documents. Regarding the wording, if the building was opened as a casino, my understanding is that the two terms can be used interchangeably to prevent repetition of the phrase, "the building". --Gyrobo (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• "The Theatre opened on February 18, 1949 with a screening of the film Blood on the Moon, and Cacchio owned the building outright by the mid-1950s." Why the capital in "Theatre" (repeated throughout)? And unrelated facts should not be linked by "and" in a single sentence.

• Fixed sentence. I capitalized "Theatre" throughout the article because the spelling of the building does not use the American spelling of "theater", and I was attempting to create a semantic difference between the proper term ("the Theater" referring to the building itself) and generic theaters. I wasn't sure how to treat this. --Gyrobo (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• "exhibiting" live performances? Is this the appropriate term to use here?

• I thought it was, because the Theatre (or theater, I'm totally flexible on that point) is a venue, where exhibitions occur. If it makes you think of museum exhibits, it can be changed, I've just been trying to increase word variety. --Gyrobo (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• Watch for overdetailing in lead, e.g. "his wife Fannie sold tickets" and other family stuff

• The family is discussed significantly in the article's body, and I believe the weight in the lead is appropriate. Many of the sources described the building's history in the context of the family. This article isn't a wp:COATRACK for the family that owned the Theater, but it's impossible to discuss the history of the Theatre without delving into the history of the people who ran it for 60 years. --Gyrobo (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

• "...a 501(c) nonprofit..." This is a colloquialism, incomprehensible to many readers. You need to explain this organisation in simple prose; don't force your readers to use a link.

• 501(c) basically means nonprofit, so removed as redundant. --Gyrobo (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I am not sure I will be able to give much more time to this review, but I hope these few comments are helpful. Brianboulton (talk) 21:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)