Wikipedia:Peer review/Resolute desk/archive1

Resolute desk

I've listed this article for peer review because… after a lengthy rewrite this article now has a more complete history and description of the desk than is likely found anywhere else. I'm very proud of the article and would love to nominate it as a GA. I know that spelling and grammar are not my strong suits so I'd love some input on that throughout the article, but I'd also like to know if there seems to be any gaps, any extraneous information, or anything that the article leaves you wondering. I also do not have any more reliable sources describing how the desks looks, but that section feels a bit thin to me. Id love opinions on if it feels fleshed out enough or if anyone has suggestions on how to write more about how the desk looks without having any more sources that describe it in detail.

Thanks, Found5dollar (talk) 16:21, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

My review

Firstly, you are right to be proud of this article; it is well-researched and cited, detailed, and clear. You should definitely submit this for Good Article status. I have made a number of copyediting edits; hopefully these are all self-explanatory. Below are my additional comments.

• This article says in two places that the White House Reconstruction was from 1948 to 1952, but the Wikipedia article on that subject says it was from 1949 to 1952. Check which is correct, and consider editing the other article if you find it's the one in the wrong.
  • So the issue here is that while the actual reconstruction began in 1949 everyone moved out of the building in 1948. This is stated in then main article. I chose to use 1948 instead of 1949 becase A) my reliable sources all used 1948 and B) because this article is not about when the building was being torn up but when the desk was no longer in use. The desk stopped being used when everyone left in 1948.--Found5dollar (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
• There is some repetition in the article. For example, there are the sentences "On August 26, 1880, Victor Drummond, the British ambassador to Washington, wrote a letter to William M. Evarts, Secretary of State for the US, about the gift the president would soon be receiving of a writing table created at the direction of Queen Victoria. The letter explained that the table was to be made from the timbers of the Resolute at Chatham Dockyard." However, the reader of this article will already be well aware by this point that the desk was created at Queen Victoria's direction and that it was made from Resolute timbers. I think it can be important to restate key points in new sections sometimes, but not in subsections.
  • I've restated these few sentences to get rid of some duplicated info.--Found5dollar (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
• I think that you have excessive detail about how the White House operated at the time the desk arrived there. It is important to demonstrate the importance (or unimportance) of the rooms in which the desk has resided, as that gives an indication of how important the desk was seen over the years. However, detail such as "In general the Lincoln Suite (the Lincoln Bedroom and Lincoln Sitting Room) was used as executive offices, the Treaty Room was considered the cabinet room, and the Yellow Oval Room was used as the president's library or a family parlor" is excessive.
  • thank you for pointing this out. I'm not always sure where stuff becomes extraneous and when it is valuable. I've pared this back.--Found5dollar (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
• Be consistent in your formatting: is it called "the Resolute desk" or "the Resolute desk"?
  • Thanks for this note. it should be "the Resolute desk". i fixed all mentions of it in the article text but in the references I left it formatted as the titles have it.--Found5dollar (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
• "Five other presidential libraries also display replicas of the Resolute desk. Besides the Kennedy Library, four others display the desk as part of recreation Oval Offices" - it's not clear from this text if the Kennedy library presents the desk as part of an Oval Office recreation or not. And in general you could tidy up the language around the location of replicas; it's not really important whether a place has it as part of an Oval Office recreation or not, so to help reduce the length of this section I would consider removing specifics about how organisations (beyond a few major ones?) display their replica desk.
  • A very fair point. I've tried to tighten this up a bit.--Found5dollar (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
• I do think that you provide enough detail about the appearance of the desk, especially when combined with the images. The only two things I found I wanted to know more on was
  • Do more details survive about the unsuccessful contest submissions, especially images?
    • I have tried and tried to find more about this but haven't had any luck. ill search some more. --Found5dollar (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
  • Is there an image of the Grinnell desk? (Though the article already has lots of images so that may be excessive.)
    • There are some images of the Grinnell desk on the internet [1] [2] but neither are free to use. As the article is not about the Grinnell desk I am a little hesitant to go with fair use to use these pictures. My hope is that once things start opening up a bit more I might be able to take a day trip to New Bedford to see the desk for myself and take some pictures of it. if we think that fair use would be ok here I'd be happy to move the images in.--Found5dollar (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the chance to read about this interesting item! HenryCrun15 (talk) 21:36, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

@HenryCrun15: thank you for this review! I havent been as active as usual here becasue of life stuff, but plan on taking your suggestion and applying them to the article soon. than you again! --Found5dollar (talk) 15:00, 4 April 2021 (UTC)