Talk:Liber de compositione alchemiae/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: David Eppstein (talk · contribs) 05:29, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

This has recently been rewritten by the nominator from a stub into...a longer stub. It has only a lead section and a list of reprints, in particular far from MOS:LEAD (Good Article criterion 1b). It says almost nothing about what is in the book, or who it might have influenced. The long bibliography is barely used, and presumably contains much more information about this work. It does not even mention one of the claims to fame of this work, that it was the first to use the word "alchemy" in English (De Roure, Wilcox, & Chamberlain 2017, [1]). In short, it is very far from addressing the main aspects of the topic (Good Article criterion 3a). There are no illustrations even though one could presumably find copyright-free reproductions of old editions (Good Article criteria 6). The bibliography formatting violates MOS:BADHEAD (part of WP:ACCESSIBILITY); this is not one of the MOS guidelines listed in the GA criteria, but I think it's important, and arguably falls afoul of Good Article criterion 2a. In short, I think this was not near ready to have been nominated for GA, and is so far from passing that it falls under WP:GAFAIL. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:44, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Comment: This review was fast. Twenty minutes. It was so fast, it almost whooshed away a little spark of light in the dark lands of wikignorance, no questions asked. @David Eppstein: please go and read the article ... slowly ... then read it again, even slowlier. Translated into vernacular languages ... sixteenth century ... completed 11 February 1144 ... vernacular languages ... sixteenth century ... Latin word ... alchemia ... and as your Latin world does not yet know what alchemy is ... material substance ... Eventually, it will come to you. Then, if you really have some time, try the following wiki pro-tip (note 4): "most recent status quaestionis also in Dapsens 2016"; now just see if there's anything in there "about what is in the book, or who it might have influenced". Apaugasma (talk) 09:27, 7 December 2020 (UTC)