Wikipedia:Peer review/John Neal bibliography/archive1

John Neal bibliography

This is the first list article I've created, so I'm curious to get feedback on it. I am particularly interested in getting feedback on how the longest section (articles by John Neal) was WP:SPLITOUT.

Thanks for taking the time to review! Dugan Murphy (talk) 04:39, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Comments from Thrakkx

• I don't see the value in these complex sorting functions for publication years. For example, the value of cell A2 in the table under "Nonfiction books" is 1854, but in the table source, it's {{sort|1854.1|1854}}. Based on the source code for publication dates that include a month and/or day, 1854.1 suggests that it was published in January, which I assume is not correct. It seems that this notation is used to keep publications of the same year in a particular order. So in the case of the two 1823 novels for example, why should Seventy-Six always be ordered before Randolph, a Novel?

In almost all cases, publications dates that show a year only do not need to be arranged in a particular way against others in that year except the example you mentioned of the three novels published in 1823, which were published in that order and are always represented in that order in published bibliographies, even though there is no historical consensus on exactly when in 1823 each was published. Do you think this edit addresses the issue you raised? Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I think that works well for the reader. It also makes sense to retain the original sorting logic you had, provided that we use Template:DTS and add a comment explaining why the cells have that format. I changed the sorting code for the three to this: | {{dts|1823|addkey=#}}<!--This publication was the #th of the three in 1823-->. The addkey parameter could come in handy elsewhere in the article if you find it necessary to specify a specific order of identical dates/years. Thrakkx (talk) 00:10, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

• Per above, in the case where you do need a sorting function, such as sorting "August 1816" and "September 1816," you should be using Template:DTS. That way, future editors have documentation to read.

I've never used Template:DTS before, but I like it. The only problem with using it here is that it doesn't appear to accommodate lists of serial publication dates and publication date ranges, both of which come up a lot in this article. Do you have a different solution or am I missing something about how DTS functions? Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

In the case where you have something more complex than a single date, that's when you would want to use Template:Sort. I did a quick test, and changing some values to DTS and retaining others as Sort will not break the sorting of dates. Thrakkx (talk) 00:10, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Great. I've implemented this recommended mix of DTS, Sort, and simple numbers in the date/year columns. Dugan Murphy (talk) 03:37, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

• The year cell for the novel Ruth Elder should be changed from its current value to 1843. You already explain the individual publication dates for the first three installments in the notes column. I think you should list the other dates there, too. The row will look much cleaner, and all values in the "Year" column will be simply years.

Agreed! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• Minor comments:
  • Per MOS:DTAB, all tables should have an appropriate caption. You can (and in my opinion should) make them invisible using Template:Screen reader-only.

Agreed! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• • "1st publisher" should be changed to "First publisher" for all columns with the name.

Agreed! Done. Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• I noticed from your edit surrounding the sort parameters that there are many sort functions that are unnecessary. For example {{sort|Baltimore: N. G. Maxwell|Baltimore: N. G. Maxwell}} actually does nothing and is equivalent to simply writing Baltimore: N. G. Maxwell. The same goes for instances like {{sort|1847|1847}} You should go through the article and remove the many other instances of this to bring down the article's byte size, which is quite large.

Good point! I'm working on deleting these extra sort templates. There are tons of them. Dugan Murphy (talk) 03:37, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

@Thrakkx: Thanks for this feedback! Let me know what you think about my questions above. Whatever we settle on here I'll also apply to the table in Articles by John Neal. Dugan Murphy (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

@Dugan Murphy: thanks for addressing what are probably the most nitpicky comments you may receive. These changes are undeniably tedious and have no real benefit to the reader. However, they make the tables as simple as possible for future editors, and they minimize the byte size of the article (which is already down by 11,000). Speaking of, the article looks excellent; your attention to detail is just stellar! No further comments. Thrakkx (talk)

By the way, you should definitely nominate this article for WP:FL (which I think is the right one over WP:GA or WP:FA) after this review is closed if you haven't already have that planned. Thrakkx (talk) 04:06, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Comment by Buidhe

The bibliography looks in great shape. Dugan Murphy If I were you I'd go straight to FLC at this point. Good luck! (t · c) buidhe 03:50, 22 May 2021 (UTC)