Misplaced Pages

Talk:Frank Matcham: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editContent deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 15:36, 13 May 2013 editSchroCat (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers113,036 editsm →Infobox← Previous edit Latest revision as of 00:03, 23 November 2024 edit undoAnomieBOT (talk | contribs)Bots6,561,141 edits Adding/updating {{OnThisDay}} for 2024-11-22. Errors? User:AnomieBOT/shutoff/OnThisDayTagger 
(71 intermediate revisions by 22 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Article history
⚫ {{WikiProject Biography
|action1=PR
|living=no
|action1date=14:24:12 12 June 2019 (UTC)
|class=Start
|action1link=Misplaced Pages:Peer review/Frank Matcham/archive1
|listas = Matcham, Frank
|action1result=reviewed
|action1oldid=944430870
|action2 = FAC
|action2date = 2019-07-19
|action2link = Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Frank Matcham/archive1
|action2result = promoted
|action2oldid = 905974114
|currentstatus = FA
|maindate=May 17, 2020
|otd1date=2024-11-22|otd1oldid=1258979093
}} }}
{{WikiProject banner shell|class=FA|living=no|listas=Matcham, Frank|1=
⚫ {{WikiProject Biography}}
{{WikiProject England|importance=low}}
⚫ {{WikiProject Architecture|importance=mid}}
{{WikiProject Theatre|importance=low}}
}}
{{User:MiszaBot/config
|archiveheader = {{aan}}
|maxarchivesize = 100K
|counter = 1
|minthreadsleft = 4
|minthreadstoarchive = 1
|algo = old(30d)
|archive = Talk:Frank Matcham/Archive %(counter)d
}}
{{annual readership}}
{{Archives |search=yes |bot=MiszaBot I |age=1 |units=month |index=/Archive index }}

==Unclear bits==
1. In the final para of the lead, "His biographer Brian Walker notes from the architect's personal archives that ..." means what, exactly? What is the connection between the architect's personal archives and Mr. Walker's judgement?

2. Second sentence: "He was best known for ...". Is he no longer best known for this?

3. End of lead para 2: "the Revill family who owned many of the theatres throughout the UK at that time." Not sure what "of the" means. Are we saying that they owned the majority of the UK's theatres? If so, we should say so. If not, can we drop those two words?

4. Lead P3 - Worth noting that "in the provinces" will probably grate on a great many people in the provinces, who ''hate'' that phrase. -> "around the country"?

5. Lead P3 - Can we lose the superfluous "when compared" part of "describes Matcham's theatre interiors to be superior when compared to the building's external designs" -> "describes Matcham's theatre interiors to be superior to the building's external designs"


6. Lead P3 - discontinue -> avoid, remove "otherwise: "Matcham's use of cantilevers for the galleries allowed him to discontinue the use of columns, which would otherwise obstruct the audience's view" -> "Matcham's use of cantilevers for the galleries allowed him to avoid the use of columns, which would obstruct the audience's view"
⚫ {{WikiProject Architecture|class=Stub|auto=yes}}


--] (]) 12:06, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
== Infobox ==


==Wrong Gaiety Theatre picture==
: "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article. '''Whether to include an infobox, which infobox to include, and which parts of the infobox to use, is determined through discussion and consensus among the editors at each individual article."''' Seek consensus first please. -- '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px Black;">]<sup>]</sup></span>''' 11:00, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
The picture of the Gaiety Theatre shows it located on the corner of Strand (right) and Aldwych (left) with ] in the background. This is the replacement theatre built after Phipps' was demolished in 1903. The Gaiety Theatre designed by Phipps, occupied a site on the Corner of Essex Street and Catherine Street and was on the left of the view in the postcard. The map below from 1900 shows the theatre's location before Aldwych and Kingsway were constructed.
:The section you cite does not not require ''prior'' consensus. ] applies. The use of infoboxes provides a convenient summary of salient points for the benefit of our readers; and allows their software tools to extract such data, also to their benefit. The use of over a million infoboxes on Misplaced Pages shows widespread community support for their inclusion. You give no reason for the recent removal of the infobox I added, which should be restored. <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">]</span> (<span class="nickname">Pigsonthewing</span>); ]; ]</span> 13:32, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
]
::To reduce the life of an individual to a handful of bullet points is not distilling, it is dumbing down. Nothing more. There is no requirement to have an infobox on any page, but they do serve a very good purpose from time to time: summarising 65 years of a full and interesting life is not one of those times. - ] (]) 13:38, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Larger scale OS maps are and .--] (]) 13:26, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
:::Your comments appear to be arguing a case against against biographical infoboxes per se, rather than of the subject of this particular article. I suggest that you raise an RfC prohibiting them at that level, of you believe that the current common practice of using them for biographies is unacceptable. <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">]</span> (<span class="nickname">Pigsonthewing</span>); ]; ]</span> 15:02, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
<br>
::::Why? The situation is covered by the MOS, "The use of infoboxes is neither required nor prohibited for any article", as you well know. Either way, it is not about the use of infoboxes on biographies: in some cases they are extremely useful in biographies. Please do not try to misrepresent what others have said. - ] (]) 15:09, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
:::::Pigsonthewing, where does MoS say ''prior''? Your arguement here is nonsensical. -- '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px Black;">]<sup>]</sup></span>''' 18:13, 10 May 2013 (UTC) :Thanks {{u|DavidCane}}. Are there any images we can use out there? I have to say, the image is used more for the plot in which the theatre stands rather than the building itself. What if that were made clear in the caption? '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px Black;">]<sup>]</sup></span>''' 19:27, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
::{{u|Cassianto}}, how about . It says it can be reused without permission.--] (]) 19:41, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
::::::Its not me whose posting nonsensical comments. I didn't say that the MoS says ''prior''; I said that it doesn't. I note that you, too, make no arguments against the infobox I added to this article. <span class="vcard"><span class="fn">]</span> (<span class="nickname">Pigsonthewing</span>); ]; ]</span> 18:46, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
:::Looks great! I see no reason not to use it, although does it illustrate the point about the awkward plot? '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px Black;">]<sup>]</sup></span>''' 20:33, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
:::::::For the record, I am not completely opposed to them. I think they work well in sports, science and film articles. However, I am totally opposed to them in biographies. The info box in a biography is a redundent rehash of information that can easily be found in the lede and the first few lines of the body. IMO, it is ugly, forces the lede image to an awkward size and is repetition at its worst; "Frank Matcham" alone appeared four times at the beginning of the article. His name appeared once at the article title, next in the lede, above the infobox, and below the image. A biographical infobox is designed to give the lazy, uninterested reader quick, disposable information and does nothing to entice them in to reading the article. As editors, we ''want'' people to read the articles which we have invested so much time and research in. Otherwise, we may aswell just put an infobox in an article and do away with the text altogether. We would need consensus to remove an infobox, so you should require consensus to add one. --'''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px Black;">]<sup>]</sup></span>''' 19:30, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
::::If you want to specifically illustrate that, I suggest that a section of the 1895 OS map is uploaded, perhaps with the outline highlighted in red. They are out of copyright after 50 years.--] (]) 20:41, 17 May 2020 (UTC)


== Citation 16: "Tenders", The Builder, 1 March 1873, p. 176. ==
It is not in the best interests of the project to require consensus before editing an article. Our encyclopedia has grown because we allow anyone to edit and bold editing is the commonest way of establishing consensus, so I would always counsel against bringing forward arguments that relied on an appeal that a consensus has to be sought before editing. The value of infoboxes in any article includes that they ''do'' provide the "lazy" overview - they are a condensation of the key points of the lead in just the same way that the lead is a condensation of the key points of the whole article. I would urge everyone not to dismiss lightly the argument that we should not be prejudging how our readers consume articles. If a visitor to our site only wants a brief, "dumbed-down" overview, who are we to deny them that facility? We must always remember we are writing Misplaced Pages for all of our readers (including re-users), not for our editors. Of course the teacher in me wants the reader to read the whole article, but I must recognise that it is not my place to ''insist'' on that.


This section of The Builder contains information about tenders already awarded, and records that the building contractor James Matcham of Plymouth had been awarded the construction contract, together with the amount of his tender <Dartmouth and South Hams Chronicle 28 February 1873, p2.>. Tenders had been invited the previous January <Western Morning News 25 January 1873 p1>, with no mention of Frank Matcham. It would have been highly unusual for a professional architect to cite one of his subordinates in such a context.] (]) 17:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)
Infoboxes not only supply a very short summary, though. They provide a means of marking up some of the data in standardised format (this is called a ]) so that the resulting HTML can be read by automated tools and aggregated for easy re-use by third parties. Additionally, for at least the last five years, Google has been using our infoboxes as one of the primary means of improving the natural language capabilities of its page reading tools. For example Google will correctly identify a birth date in the lead perhaps about 70% of the time; if it reads a "birth date" parameter in an infobox then it accurately identifies the correct birth date more like 95% of the time. There's a Google tech talk that describes how they can use common structures like {{tl|infobox person}} (which is used on a massive number of articles) for artificial intelligence research at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqOHbihYbhE for anyone who has the time to watch it. Now I agree that not every editor will put value on writing articles so that they are more usable by Goggle and other third parties, but I submit that it has great value. Our mission is to create a world where every single human being has free access to the total sum of human knowledge. We won't do that on our own, and we are going to have to accept that the Googles of this world and the other re-users are some of the most valuable partners we have in getting closer to our goal.
:Thanks, now fixed. ] (]) 08:08, 10 April 2022 (UTC)


== Please add this plaque if appropriate ==
Just as those three advantages of infoboxes need to be considered, there are many reasons why infoboxes may disadvantage an article: the extra effort of creating and keeping an infobox updated and synchronised with other data in the article; the aesthetic considerations associated with the article's images or a large infobox swamping a stub-sized article; and other perfectly respectable reasons that vary from one article to another. Nevertheless, I would respectfully suggest that we editors are not able to predict with any accuracy which factors are most important in a generic class of article. A very short chemistry article with a huge infobox looks awful, while consensus has agreed that a large, well-crafted biography such as ] (a featured article) is able to sustain a large infobox. I would therefore ask that Cassianto and SchroCat (both editors I respect) should consider carefully the arguments I make here and try to explain to Andy (another editor I respect) the specific and concrete arguments they are bringing here against the proposed infobox in ''this'' article, and listen to Andy's case with respect - I would equally expect Andy to respect the reasoning of you both even if he does not agree with it and wants to debate point-by-point. Without that dialogue, and a willingness to listen carefully to each other, you won't be seeing where common ground lies and where compromise is possible. We need to be able to do that if we want to avoid the scenario where two distinct sides are polarised and simply edit-war to see who can force their preferred version into an article. That would indeed be a failure of the processes that have created the project we all so passionately believe in. --] (]) 02:22, 13 May 2013 (UTC)


] ] (]) 16:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
:Thanks for your polite comments Rexx, which are much appreciated. You are right about the Bold editing, of course, except that on such a contentious issue, which I certainly think this is, a degree of circumspection around the boldness is preferable to avoid the inevitable decline into argument and rancour. I'll also add that I've seen people being accused of being vandals for ''removing'' infoboxes, which seems a little one-sided, given that it is an equally valid edit to adding one.


:What a nice plaque. it could match the other one in Legacy. ] (]) 16:49, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
:Personally, if I feel a box is unnecessary, I prefer to ask the question on the talk page and be guided by the consensus that follows, rather than try and stamp my own personal preferences onto an article from the off. I find that the process is received much better by other editors if the discussion precedes any action (or lack of it), as well as having the advantage of listening to others, rather the barracking tones that sometimes accompany these discussions.


::{{u|Krok6kola}}, {{u|KJP1}}, done. {{tick}} '''<span style="text-shadow:7px 7px 8px Black;">]<sup>]</sup></span>''' 08:11, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:I appreciate your points about needing to find a balance between the desire to provide the data for engines such as Google, against other editor concerns, and as such I drew up the following ] which will address the data issues you raised. I'll put to one side the POV issues in the "Notable works" list (ie, who decided on these, as opposed to his other works) in the interest of coming to a clean consensus over this. All the best - ] (]) 15:31, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 00:03, 23 November 2024

Featured articleFrank Matcham is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Misplaced Pages community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page as Today's featured article on May 17, 2020.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
June 12, 2019Peer reviewReviewed
July 19, 2019Featured article candidatePromoted
On this day...A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on November 22, 2024.
Current status: Featured article
This article is rated FA-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
WikiProject iconBiography
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Misplaced Pages's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
WikiProject iconEngland Low‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject England, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of England on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.EnglandWikipedia:WikiProject EnglandTemplate:WikiProject EnglandEngland-related
LowThis article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
WikiProject iconArchitecture Mid‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Architecture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Architecture on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchitectureWikipedia:WikiProject ArchitectureTemplate:WikiProject ArchitectureArchitecture
MidThis article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
WikiProject iconTheatre Low‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is part of WikiProject Theatre, a WikiProject dedicated to coverage of theatre on Misplaced Pages.
To participate: Feel free to edit the article attached to this page, join up at the project page, or contribute to the project discussion.TheatreWikipedia:WikiProject TheatreTemplate:WikiProject TheatreTheatre
LowThis article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.


Archives
Archive 1

This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Unclear bits

1. In the final para of the lead, "His biographer Brian Walker notes from the architect's personal archives that ..." means what, exactly? What is the connection between the architect's personal archives and Mr. Walker's judgement?

2. Second sentence: "He was best known for ...". Is he no longer best known for this?

3. End of lead para 2: "the Revill family who owned many of the theatres throughout the UK at that time." Not sure what "of the" means. Are we saying that they owned the majority of the UK's theatres? If so, we should say so. If not, can we drop those two words?

4. Lead P3 - Worth noting that "in the provinces" will probably grate on a great many people in the provinces, who hate that phrase. -> "around the country"?

5. Lead P3 - Can we lose the superfluous "when compared" part of "describes Matcham's theatre interiors to be superior when compared to the building's external designs" -> "describes Matcham's theatre interiors to be superior to the building's external designs"

6. Lead P3 - discontinue -> avoid, remove "otherwise: "Matcham's use of cantilevers for the galleries allowed him to discontinue the use of columns, which would otherwise obstruct the audience's view" -> "Matcham's use of cantilevers for the galleries allowed him to avoid the use of columns, which would obstruct the audience's view"

--Tagishsimon (talk) 12:06, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Wrong Gaiety Theatre picture

The picture of the Gaiety Theatre shows it located on the corner of Strand (right) and Aldwych (left) with St Mary le Strand in the background. This is the replacement theatre built after Phipps' was demolished in 1903. The Gaiety Theatre designed by Phipps, occupied a site on the Corner of Essex Street and Catherine Street and was on the left of the view in the postcard. The map below from 1900 shows the theatre's location before Aldwych and Kingsway were constructed.

1900 map showing Gaiety theatre location

Larger scale OS maps are here (1893-95) and here (1914) showing the new theatre as the first building constructed on the newly clear semi-circle of land.--DavidCane (talk) 13:26, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks DavidCane. Are there any images we can use out there? I have to say, the image is used more for the plot in which the theatre stands rather than the building itself. What if that were made clear in the caption? Cassianto 19:27, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Cassianto, how about this one. It says it can be reused without permission.--DavidCane (talk) 19:41, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
Looks great! I see no reason not to use it, although does it illustrate the point about the awkward plot? Cassianto 20:33, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
If you want to specifically illustrate that, I suggest that a section of the 1895 OS map is uploaded, perhaps with the outline highlighted in red. They are out of copyright after 50 years.--DavidCane (talk) 20:41, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Citation 16: "Tenders", The Builder, 1 March 1873, p. 176.

This section of The Builder contains information about tenders already awarded, and records that the building contractor James Matcham of Plymouth had been awarded the construction contract, together with the amount of his tender <Dartmouth and South Hams Chronicle 28 February 1873, p2.>. Tenders had been invited the previous January <Western Morning News 25 January 1873 p1>, with no mention of Frank Matcham. It would have been highly unusual for a professional architect to cite one of his subordinates in such a context.Lapford (talk) 17:47, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, now fixed. FGMC1870 (talk) 08:08, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Please add this plaque if appropriate

Krok6kola (talk) 16:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

What a nice plaque. it could match the other one in Legacy. KJP1 (talk) 16:49, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
Krok6kola, KJP1, done. checkY Cassianto 08:11, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
Categories: