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Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of chronometers on HMS Beagle/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 Giants2008 20:10, 18 June 2012 [1].

List of chronometers on HMS Beagle

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List of chronometers on HMS Beagle (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): SpinningSpark 23:20, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list because it is a list of important instruments on an important voyage of a highly notable ship. Besides which it tells a great story. It has been through Peer Review and GOCE. SpinningSpark 23:20, 17 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Support --Thefrood (talk) 21:42, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 11:14, 14 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Initial comments I like! A really innovative and interesting list, something we should all encourage, so nice work so far.
  • Image captions that aren't complete sentences should not have a full stop (e.g. the lead image).
    done
  • Five paras in the lead is a little heavy, although a couple of those paras are brief. Check out WP:LEAD.
  • This is an unusual page and I grant the lede is long for the average list article, but WP:LEAD is not really relevant to lists, in that the introduction to a list is not (or not only) a summary of the list. The relevant guideline is MOS:SAL which requires that the lede, amongst other things, "provides any necessary background information" and "gives encyclopedic context". Most of the lede can be said to fall under those criteria. The page addresses the intersection of chronometers and HMS Beagle. The first para gives background on chronometers, the second para gives background on Beagle and her mission, the third para gives background on chronometers on survey ships, the fourth and fifthe paras address the reasons for large numbers of chronometers on the mission. All this seems to me useful background for the reader, and you have not indicated which of these areas you think should be reduced or cut. On the contrary, all your comments so far which affect the lede require an expansion.
  • Can you point to where there is consensus for that? I am open to suggestions that this might be done another way with reasons why it is an improvement, but I am not very open to arguments that it is against guidelines when WP:SAL says something utterly contradictory. SpinningSpark 13:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is astonishingly misleading to just say SAL links to WP:LEAD and just leave it at that as if SAL was deferring to WP:LEAD in every respect. MOS:SAL actually goes on to say a lot more than that: "Stand-alone lists should begin with a lead section that summarizes its content, provides any necessary background information, gives encyclopedic context, links to other relevant articles, and makes direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected, unless inclusion criteria are unambiguously clear from the article title." If that is not the consensus, then the guideline should be changed, but guidelines are usually taken as evidence of what the consensus currently is, so I don't know where that leaves us. I took your advice and looked at the three most recently promoted articles List of Georgia Bulldogs head football coaches, List of Major League Baseball player–managers and List of Somerset CCC Twenty20 players (all placed on the FL page by you by the way). None of them could be said to have a lede that merely summarised the content of the body. All of them contain mostly material that could be described as "background information" or "encyclopedic context". I might be persuaded to do something if I was convinced it was actually of some benefit to the page. I will take another look later, but for now I am declining and will wait to see where this review is going first. SpinningSpark 16:00, 1 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not "astonishingly misleading" (unless you're easily astonished I suppose), but I'm just one reviewer. Let's see, it's certainly not a huge deal. No need to thank me for taking plenty of time for the review, by the way. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:34, 2 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Suggest you link longitude in the lead.
  • done
  • Only the second expedition has a link?
  • As far as I know. The second expedition, as well as being notable for its mission per se, is enormously famous as the journey which carried Charles Darwin during which he began to formulate his Theory of Evolution. I have not dwelled on this aspect because that story is well covered elsewhere on Wikipedia and, frankly, Darwin has naff all to do with chronometers.
  • " a copy of John Harrison's H4" if you mention Harrison in the lead, consider explaining why someone would attempt to copy his work, i.e. what is his significance?
  • done
  • " had become highly inaccurate" highly, or just unacceptably?
  • done
  • "By the time of the Beagle voyages, carrying chronometers had become routine and the ship carried a large number – an unprecedented 22 were carried on the second voyage." count the use of "carry" here in one sentence... suggest a minor rework.
  • done
  • "Such large quantities were necessary" not an immediate logical sequitur from the previous para.
  • done
  • Please make sure all tables meet MOS:DTT for screen readers etc. (That means including row and col scopes where applicable).
  • done

Enough to start with, will come back once these are done. Nice list. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:44, 30 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments

  • "80 Cornhill.[18]" this could be expanded a touch so our international readers understand it.
  • Added London, although Cornhill is linked on first mention and the London location should be assumed from the headnote if not explicitly stated otherwise.
  • "furthest point south " horses for courses but somehow I prefer "most southerly point".
  • Agreed, missed this one on the first run through
  • The Nomenclature section is a little oddly positioned as sub-section to that which precedes the sections to which it is relevant.
  • Moved up one level
  • " (Des. column) " but the column title is in bold, not italics. Same with the other explanations. Perhaps ("Des." column) etc?
  • My belief was that this was to comply with MoS (terms in italics) but as I also think quotes look better I have changed it regardless.
  • Does an en-dash under "winding" mean not known? It's not clear.
  • Well it means I don't know, but not necessarily that it is not known to anybody. Would you prefer the cells to simply be left blank?
  • That seems superfluous to me. The note would in effect be saying rather obviously that the article has provided no information in fields which contain no information. Do you have a suggestion for wording? SpinningSpark 22:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm really against writing "unknown" in here when what we really mean is unknown to Wikipedia. It is perfectly possible that information exists somewhere, I just don't know where to find it. A chronometer expert might well be able to identify the winding from the serial numbers. Frodsham's for instance still have records on individual chronometers going back to their foundation. It is also conceivable that "not applicable" might actually be the case: while batteries are, of course, not a possibility, there is such a thing as self-winding mechanisms, although I have never heard of a self-winding marine chronometer - at least not a 19th century one. SpinningSpark 11:32, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Liutenant Skyring" typo.
  • done
  • Adventure's Z chronometer comment needs an en-dash if there's nothing to say, to be consistent.
  • done
  • You have two separate tables with the caption "Chronometers on first voyage (Adventure)", I'm not sure why, but perhaps I missed something obvious?
  • Ultimately, the justification for splitting the table into two groups is that Parker treats them differently in his description. Although he does not explicitly state this, I gather that the first group are his officially issued chronometers. They are mounted together in the same structure and given designations for identifying them in the log of readings. The second group are provided by manufacturers, probably for the promotional value of having their product on an important mission, and do not have designations. Unlike the main group, their pocketwatch format indicates they were used as journeyman chronometers, although Parker only explicitly identifies one used for this purpose. My original concept for this article was to give each chronometer its own subsection. This was changed to tables due to a suggestion by the peer reviewer and I would not now want to revert to a scheme that another reviewer found objectionable. The current format is a compromise between the desire to have a compact table format and the need to keep extended text close the chronometers to which it applies, hence two tables at this point.
  • Not entirely convinced links to major geographical entities like Chile, Peru, Australia etc are required. In fact, things like gimbal would be much more usefully linked...
  • Why I mentioned gimbal is that when I saw you'd lined Chile, etc, gimbal was the nearest word to it that I thought should have been linked. I missed that it was linked before. The principle was to link non-standard terms. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:09, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • " miles (15.3 km)on " space required.
  • done
  • "inflation adjusted £37,300" adjusted to when?
  • The template automatically adjusts to the current(ish) value - ie, to the last time the template data was updated. It could be to a specific date but I feel it is preferable to let the template take care of it, that is the point of having a template.
  • Why the big col spans for info in the "Chronometers on second voyage" table when you have a Comments cell that could contain most of this information? I fear, a little, for the accessibility of this particular table since you kind-of abuse the headings etc to get in images and additional notes...
  • This is due to the same compromise mentioned above in going to table format. Placing all the text in the "comments" column would push down and cause a lot of ugly whitespace, and writing it elsewhere would split it from the target chronometer. The alternative is to keep splitting the tables which is moving back towards the original layout.
  • I would be consistent with the captions on the tables so "on the second voyage (Beagle)" perhaps?
  • Why? the other tables don't require disambiguation. The Wikipedia convention is only to disambiguate where required. We do not put a bracketed disambiguation in article titles for instance, unless it is actually needed.
  • The comment isn't one about disambiguation, more about consistency throughout. If someone were just looking at the tables, then it is not immediately clear which "second voyage" you are referring to. Honestly, for the sake of consistency, this shouldn't be too troublesome. The Rambling Man (talk) 09:19, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • But the purpose of the bracketed suffix is all about disambiguation. I'm not really getting why we need table headings at all, but have taken it on faith because DTT calls for them. If we are going to have headings, there is no reason to not comply with MOS rules on headings. The headings could be something like "Chronometers on Beagle's nth voyage", but this would be breaking the rule not to repeat the subject in sub-headings. After all, the section heading just says "First voyage" etc, there is no reason we need to then expand it in the even lower level table heading. After all, the voyages are clearly identified and described both in the lede and in each individual section so their should be no possibility of confusion. SpinningSpark 11:32, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry I missed this earlier. You've created table captions (not headers) which the MOS asks us to, partly to identify the table to a sighted reader, but particularly to index the table to anyone using a screen reader, Some of them can call up a list of all the captions of the tables on a webpage and allow the user to go directly to that table. That functionality is enhanced by having a descriptive caption that is not too long (for obvious reason), so I'd tend to agree with Spark's conclusion (but not his reasoning) here: as long as the caption is unique and clear, it should be kept short where possible. Hope that helps, --RexxS (talk) 15:52, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know you're not arguing that, TRM, and I apologise for sometimes using these reviews to propagate general advice to whoever happens to be reading them. I suppose I ought to collect guidance up in one place some time, but the context of an actual review works so well ... Cheers, --RexxS (talk) 20:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • RexxS, no worries, of course. I take up so much of your wiki-life by diverting folks your way, I can hardly complain. General advice is brilliant advice when most of us aren't even sure what advice we're even supposed to be asking for. As ever, cheers. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:15, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "on 13 Oct 1843." in prose, even in tables, there's no good reason to not use October etc.
  • Agreed
  • Actually "clocks" is the more specific category, and marine chronometers all seem to be in that category. Not very justifiably in my opinion since chronometers can be in the form of a watch. So I probably agree that horology is the correct category, but for different reasons. I have not had much to do with choosing the categories, but while we are on the subject, the article used to be in ship categories but they were removed by another editor on the grounds that the subject is not a ship. We could equally argue that the subject is not a chronometer. We really ought to be doing something consistent here, but I don't really have a proposal.

The Rambling Man (talk) 16:08, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from RexxS

Disclaimer: This is a fascinating list/article, covering a real niche topic in fine detail. Any following criticism is not intended to detract from my impression that this is a piece of work worthy of being considered "among Wikipedia's best".

In terms of accessibility, the more complex you make the structure of any table, the less likely it is to be accessible by all screen readers. A table which contains no row or column spans is guaranteed to work with virtually any user agent, including text-only browsers that may be used by visitors on very low bandwidth connections. A sophisticated screen reader like JAWS will generally make quite a good job of fairly complex tables, but at the cost of some misinformation. For example, in the table 'Chronometers on second voyage', the cells with images would be preceded by the spoken word "Maker" when column header announcement is turned on. Generally, I'd recommend that tables are best when used to contain comparable information on a number of related items.

  • Therefore, I'd question whether it is a good decision to include images within a table if most of the entries do not have images. Would they not be better as larger images with an informative caption in the surrounding text?
  • Similarly, is it better to include the rows which contain considerable extra commentary, such as K, M, V, and X in 'Chronometers on second voyage'? or is it better to employ the same technique as you used in the two 'Chronometers on first voyage' tables, where you added extended commentary beneath each table? Simplifying the tables will always lead to an increase in accessibility.

I see that you are concerned about the visual appearance of the lists, and have mentioned white-space as a consideration. I've taken a screen-shot of how the table 'Chronometers on second voyage' appears on my monitor at http://www.metropolis2.co.uk/demo/Beagle%20chronometers%20list.png

  • If minimising white space is an important consideration, then you need to appreciate that setting explicit column widths (rather than percentages) will lead to the sort of problem with white space that the screen shot illustrates. The table 'Chronometers on third voyage appears even more cramped to me for the same reasons.

It's worth remembering that HTML is a markup language, not a desktop-publishing program, and attempts to fine-control how a browser displays content will always lead to problems when different screen sizes, resolutions, and browsers are considered. There's no perfect solution, and I encourage you to consider my comments above as 'food-for-thought' for you when looking at the compromises you have to make in each table. --RexxS (talk) 12:47, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • You have not commented on the suitability of the format I pointed you to at User:Spinningspark/Sandbox. Please take a look at this before the format of this article gets ripped apart yet again. My original concept for the format of this article was the much simpler scheme of a sub-heading for each chronometer and the tables being used merely to format basic information. This was changed following comments at Peer Review. I'm sure you will appreciate my reluctance: it is a little soul-destroying to have to completely rework an article each time a new reviewer comes along. I certainly don't want to do it before the editor concerned is given an opportunity to comment. Whatever the solution here, I am utterly against separating images and/or text from the chronometer to which they belong. This makes the article more difficult to understand by everybody, including those with screenreaders.
  • Regarding the whitespace, the issue is to avoid large amounts of whitespace within the table. I appreciate that there is whitespace to the right of the table on your screen, but that is not the issue. If I were to display the article using the full width of my double-monitor 3840 pixel display there would be even more whitespace to the right. But on such a display, if the tables were made 100% width of the screen, the columns with just single words or numbers would be spaced so far apart the table would be virtually unusable. At the other end of the scale, on my 1024 pixel notebook, the table still displays quite nicely, and does not need a scrollbar until the window is reduced to about half that size. Getting down as small as PDAs and mobile phones the table will not fit on the screen, but then neither will most tables on Wikipedia.
  • Your point that some text is outside the table already is not really valid. In all cases this can be justified because the text is not describing a chronometer, is describing a group of chronometers, or is quite close to the chronometer being described anyway. SpinningSpark 14:13, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • At the time I looked at your sandbox, the table was so far from usable that I didn't seriously consider it. Your latest sandbox version is a worthwhile improvement, though.
  • I understand your reluctance to change things: it's only natural when you've put a lot of work into an article. Nevertheless, as I look through the revision history of the article, I see a gradual, but significant improvement over time. Each new reviewer seems to have given you good advice.
  • You asked my opinion on the accessibility of the tables in this FLC. I'm sorry if I wasn't clearer: the tables can be coped with by some screen readers, but could be improved. The most significant improvements would be to simplify the structure of the tables, and to ensure that captions are unique.
  • I disagree with your contention that moving excess text out of the table is not justifiable because of loss of proximity to the relevant entry. I don't find it appropriate to jam large amounts of additional text (or images) into just a few entries. But I suspect we have a different view of the purpose of tables anyway. --RexxS (talk) 16:42, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's where I'm coming from: this article is being sold as a list. If list means anything, it means describing the items of the list sequentially by members. To restructure it in some other way puts into question its qualification as a list. The article was not originally table format. I don't see how you can maintain that the move to a table format was an improvement and at the same time point out the shortcomings of having all the information in table format for screenreaders. The original format would have been completely trouble free for screenreaders as far as I can make out. A lot of effort went into getting this into table format, but if it has to be unpicked then so be it (although I might go away and sulk for a week or two before doing it). SpinningSpark 17:23, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's where I'm coming from: a table is an HTML structure designed to contain a two-dimensional list. That is a list where each entry (row) contains individual data that is essentially similar to the corresponding data for other rows. I used to write databases for a living, so I guess I tend to look at a table as if it were a 'flat-file' database. I fully accept that tables are equally validly used as a means to organising a display of related information, so you mustn't take what I say as a prescription - it's just one way of looking at things. I would say that screen readers in particular treat a table as if it were a database with column headers being the fieldnames and row headers being the primary key entries, so I find my approach as useful in solving problems with the accessibility of tables.
  • Please don't unpick your list to an earlier format. I can support the present layout as acceptable, if not optimal. I'm interested in your sandbox version as it appears to be an improvement. Would you be able to find the time to get User:Graham87's opinion on the contents of your sandbox? He is a very experienced wikipedian who is blind, so I always value his opinion on these issues. (You'd have to clean up the refs, etc. so as not to distract him from the zero-width column that is the key point here, though). --RexxS (talk) 17:51, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll drop a note to Graham87. You are right, we have different views on the purpose of tables here. The table is merely a tool to help format the article. The table is adjusted to suit the required content of the article, we don't adjust the content to suit the requirements of tables. The starting point to me is the conception of what the article should look like, then choose the tools to achieve that conception. I am not really very interested in writing the kind of articles that are "prose-free" table=database in nature. SpinningSpark 18:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like the sandbox version, as it's easier to navigate with my screen reader than the previous version, especially due to the extra "Extended comments" column (which is fairly easy to move past when necessary). Graham87 07:13, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's more than good enough for me - and thank you once more, Graham!
Please make the changes to the list, Spark; and I'd be grateful if you moved that sandbox to a permanent subpage. I'd like to refer to it in future as a sensible technique for reducing the impact of rowspans when extra-large cells are needed.
@TRM - this looks a good work-around, and I think we need to keep it in mind for future FLCs when similar rowspan problems arise. --RexxS (talk) 14:23, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The changes have now been made and I have added an example to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial/Internal guidelines#Hidden columns. SpinningSpark 19:44, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Spark. I'd be happy to support this list article for FL on accessibility grounds and general interest. Other reviewers are commenting on other aspects. --RexxS (talk) 20:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Giants2008 (Talk) 20:32, 9 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments –
  • Never like to see blatant repetition from one sentence to another, like in "is called a chronometer. Chronometers...". Could try changing the second sentence to "First built in the 18th century, chronometers...".
The sentences are grammatically fine and I see no problem. Your personal preference should have no bearing on the nomination. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 22:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Rubbish. We're looking for elegant prose. That's naturally subjective. Blatant repetition is far from elegant. The Rambling Man (talk) 07:01, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Changed "Chronometers were first built..." to "These were first built..." SpinningSpark 11:18, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Chronometer makers: In Arnold's note, we have "He opened his business in The Strand in 1763, and later going into partnership with his son, John Roger Arnold, forming the company Arnold & Son." Is "forming" meant to be "formed"? Otherwise, this seems off grammatically.
Should be 'later went' - 'forming' is fine, but could be 'and formed'. Will change. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 22:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Earnshaw: Needless repetition in "Thomas Earnshaw. Earnshaw...". Don't even think there needs to be a sentence break.
Fixed. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 22:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pennington: "from" is apparently missing before the years in "Robert Pennington & Son was a partnership with his son John 1832–1842."
Fixed. Baffle gab1978 (talk) 22:17, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry to butt in, but you really can't have a dash after 'from'. Once you use the preposition 'from' you need to use the matching 'to' like: a partnership with his son John from 1832 to 1842. A date range is best used in apposition to a noun like this: a partnership with his son John during the years 1832–1842, but never like: a partnership with his son John from 1832–1842. --RexxS (talk) 21:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What is intended to be sourcing the three notes at the bottom of the article? That isn't clear at the moment.
  • I think it is clear enough. Note 1 is sourced to Fitzroy, as the note says, and Fitroy's claim that chronometer B was not used can be found in the citation for the line of the table to which that note refers. For note 2, reference to 1041 is sourced to Fitzroy. The non-existence of 1041 is sourced to the Greenwich ledgers, as the note says. I requested the curators there to do a search specifically to establish that fact. Basically, Fitzroy has made a typo and the note is there merely to indicate that the table is based on that assumption for scholarly honesty. The only factual claim in note 3 is sourced to Gould with a Harvard ref. The rest of the note is editorial explanation which boils down to the statement that the table may not be complete. SpinningSpark 12:15, 7 June 2012 (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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