Talk:Helmi Üprus/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Grnrchst (talk · contribs) 20:32, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

Grnrchst Thank you so much for picking her up. I look forward to collaborating with you to improve the article. SusunW (talk) 14:42, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Early life and education

• Is the date of birth given using old or new style dates? The Russian Empire still used the old style at the time of her birth, so it'd be good to clarify which one we're using in the article.

• Good question and I honestly don't know. I tried to research in ancestry.com, but all the records like this one give the same date but were made after the 1918 date change. I could assume they were given as Julian because it was the calendar in use then, but I do not actually know that. I typically input an explanatory note, which I have now added. If that is sufficient, then done. SusunW (talk) 15:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

If the sources don't say, then that might be as good as we'll get. Sometimes you can tell because different sources use different dating systems, but if they all use the same in this case, then I guess we can't know. Thanks for looking into it. -- Grnrchst (talk) 16:35, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "Ann (née Anderson or Andreusov)". Seems like these are Swedish and Russian variants of the same surname. Do we know which one she generally used?

• No idea. The only two references I found that gave her name were primary records. One a genealogy using Anderson and the other the Russian marriage license. As the genealogy was not a RS, I did not use it in the article, but it did indicate her ancestry was Swedish. The marriage record, as a government document recording an event, is clearly a RS, so I opted to include her mother's name rather than omit it. SusunW (talk) 15:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Change "had begun" to "was already" in order to cut down on repetition.

• done SusunW (talk) 15:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "but Üprus continued her studies" The "but" is a word to watch. Here it appears to imply that she should have stopped studying because of her mother's death. Were the two events even related? (Is this synth?)

• Modified. SusunW (talk) 15:21, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Spot check: [10] "[Sten] Karling's students Helmi Üprus and Villem Raam became leading figures in postwar heritage protection and preservation in Estonia. They carried European cultural values through the Soviet period and taught them to the younger generations of historians."

Career

• "but lost her job in 1950 under Stalin's political repression policies." Would be good to know why she was targeted, but spot checks don't reveal why.

• I know frustrating! But it could have been a variety of things, so without a source, no way to know. SusunW (talk) 16:40, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
• Spot check: [11] "Helmi Üprus was not imprisoned or deported to Siberia, but she lost her academic job in 1950 and even her degree was annulled as a result of Stalinist repressions; she had to work in a factory for three years."
• Spot check: [14] "Helmi Üprus was also repressed by the Stalinist regime but avoided deportation to Siberia. She lost her academic job in 1950, her degree was annulled, and, for a while, she had to work in a factory."

• Might be worth mentioning that Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union after decades of independence, just for context.

• I've tried to do this, but inserted two separate sections where the events would have chronologically occurred. SusunW (talk) 16:40, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

  I understand it's tricky to fit in this kind of context. Maybe I suggest fiddling around with the sentences a bit so it's something similar to:

  • "By the time Estonia had gained its independence from Russia, she was already studying the romance languages in junior high school."
  • "In 1947, she began working at the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian SSR, which had been reorganised following the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states."

  That way the context is maintained, while also keeping the focus on Üprus. -- Grnrchst (talk) 16:49, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• I am a context person too! If I can find a way to make what was going on around someone at a period in their life, to me, it adds depth. Thank you for the suggestions, I've modified using your text but keeping the verified history as supporting notes. SusunW (talk) 18:54, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

  Perfect! Grnrchst (talk) 21:28, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Research

• Is there any reason that the "career" and "research" sections are separate? There's definitely some substantial overlap between the content in the two.

• Yes, 1) I am constantly told my sections need to be broken up, so 2) "career" is about her and "research" is about her work. And yes, there is overlap, but how can that be avoided. SusunW (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• That's fair. I was only asking for a reason, wasn't asking for them to be merged. Thanks for explaining your reasoning. --Grnrchst (talk) 17:32, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Spot check: [14] "After returning from the GDR in 1969, she was convinced that historic city centers had to be kept free from traffic, while building big hotels should be prevented to avoid their touristification. She encouraged establishing small restaurants and cafés in old towns instead, as she paid attention to the needs of local people." So it seems that her trip to East Germany was directly influential on her historic city center preservation ideas.

• I noticed that, but it seemed odd to me because she had already designed the conservation plan in 1966 and the German trip was not until 1969. I thought maybe it meant that the trip reinforced her own beliefs, but wasn't sure, if that was what the author meant. SusunW (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Seems like it might have reinforced her beliefs, but anyway, it's not that big a point. --Grnrchst (talk) 17:32, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "and also analyzed". Start a new sentence here instead. So ". She also analyzed"

• Done SusunW (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "1974 annual prize for her article [...]" this is a loooong article title to be quoting in full, in both its original language and English translation. As this is already cited in the "Selected works" section, I don't think its entire title is needed here.

• I substituted the journal name. SusunW (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "Volume 1, Parts 1 and 2" If these are the only two parts of volume 1, then you can just say "volume 1" and that it covered up to 1940.

• Except that I don't know if they are. I don't speak Estonian, so researching her works was hard, especially because this specific work had many volumes and parts completed both before and after her death. SusunW (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Fair enough, I won't push this. --Grnrchst (talk) 17:32, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "for each of the two volumes" wait, so are they two parts or two volumes?

• I've changed it to read parts. The point is to convey that each contributor received two awards, one for pre-20th century and one for 20th century. SusunW (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Right, thanks for clarifying. --Grnrchst (talk) 17:32, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "and the team she supervised" maybe just "and her team"

• done. SusunW (talk) 17:16, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Death and legacy

• "Nõukogude Eesti preemia" what does this mean in English?

• inserted (Prize of Soviet Estonia) SusunW (talk) 17:43, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "in every decade from 1981 to the twenty-first century" In every decade? So she was only commemorated on one birthday each ten years, or what?

• Quite frankly I noted it because it is extremely rare in my experience for a woman to be remembered at all. Cited by other academics, but an actual article about a woman just did not happen in this time period. For context, women's studies did not emerge as a science until 1970 in the west and typically the 1990s for the east, meaning that women and their contributions were systematically ignored until women academics began demanding that they be included in the historic record. That there were significant articles written about her each decade is amazing. SusunW (talk) 17:43, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Ah ok! That makes sense, I was just confused by it. Thanks for the explanation :) -- Grnrchst (talk) 21:29, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• "it told the story of Helmi and Hilda Üprus" Is Hilda not relevant to Helmi's story? She's only mentioned here and once in the "early life" section.

• I could not find sufficient sources to confirm that Hilda meets GNG requirements, but I did try. 1) As I said before, I don't speak Estonian, so I have no idea what the film conveys other than the snippets I found discussing it. Those gave production details, not a synopsis of what the film portrayed, so I cannot judge whether Hilda's life was relevant to Helmi's. 2) Sources I found: Hilda's work is lovely, but there is no text here. This could go towards sigcov, but alone isn't sufficient. This (p. 42) makes a claim for notability, but isn't sufficient even combined with the previous source to meet GNG. As I said to my collaborator on this article, perhaps someone who speaks Estonian will be able to develop an article on Hilda that will also examine their impact upon each other. SusunW (talk) 17:43, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Ok, no bother, just checking. -- Grnrchst (talk) 21:30, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Lead and infobox

• Maybe include a bit about what her conservation plan included.

• done SusunW (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

• Consider labelling the "Governorate of Livonia" as simply "Livonia" in the infobox.

• done SusunW (talk) 18:13, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Other notes

• She's mentioned alongside Villem Raam a lot in the two English language sources I checked. Is there any reason that Raam isn't mentioned here?

• I didn't see a real cross over of their work in the sources, but I added a bit that they were students together and later collaborators. SusunW (talk) 18:35, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Grnrchst, I think I have answered all of your queries, but please feel free to continue discussion on anything I did not adequately address. I truly appreciate the time you took to review the article and your suggestions to improve it. I was surprised when I discovered her that she did not already have an article on en.WP and was happy to write her. Ping me if we need to discuss anything further. My life is a zoo right now and I cannot keep up with all that is going on. SusunW (talk) 18:58, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

This is all great! Thanks for getting back to me so thoroughly. I'll pass the article now. Amazing work putting in all the effort into this. en.WP is truly enriched by this article's existence. :D -- Grnrchst (talk) 21:31, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

Checklist

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

---

Very nicely put together, mostly well-written and well-cited, so there's only a few notes here and there.

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a. (prose, spelling, and grammar):

   Prose recommendations mentioned above

   b. (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   Only one "but" is setting off the "words to watch" here, likewise mentioned above.

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a. (reference section):

   References are all well-formatted and presented. Many don't cite an isbn or issn, so give them a once over to make sure you're not missing any.

• Really, really hard to do. I tried searching worldcat for identifiers, but was mostly unsuccessful. Listed what I could find. SusunW (talk) 19:41, 8 June 2023 (UTC)

1. b. (citations to reliable sources):

   Everything is from reliable sources that can be easily be verified.

   c. (OR):

   Spot checks found no original research. Assuming good faith on the non-English language sources.

   d. (copyvio and plagiarism):

2. It is broad in its coverage.

   a. (major aspects):

   b. (focused):

   If anything, I think it might need a little more context here and there.

3. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

4. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

   Stable for about a month.

5. It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.

   a. (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales):

   Valid non-free use rationale

   b. (appropriate use with suitable captions):

6. Overall:

   Pass/fail:

   Will pass after my notes have been addressed. It's mostly good, there's just a couple easily-fixed issues blocking it from an instant-pass.

(Criteria marked are unassessed)