Talk:St. Louis Cathedral, Fort-de-France

DYK?

Did You Know...... that the first sentence of this front-page article had the crucial noun missing?

St. Louis Cathedral (French: Cathédrale Saint-Louis de Fort-de-France) is a late 19th-century Romanesque Revival that serves as the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Fort-de-France in Martinique, an overseas region of France.

St. Louis Cathedral is a late 19th-century Romanesque Revival what?

That is really slack!

Before you put anything up for DYK, READ the first sentence at least three times. It is absolutely crucial to the article.

Amandajm (talk) 11:57, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The really interesting fact about this church, the remarkable thing, and the whole reason for the association with Eiffel is that the church has an iron frame.

From what I can see, the church also has iron cladding on the exterior.

Is it the case that almost the entire church is made of iron? With the exception perhaps of the floorboards? The window tracery is certainly of iron.

It looks to me as if the entire church was prefabricated to Eiffel's design, and then transported for assembly.

Can someone find out? If this is the case, then the church is most unusual.

Note that iron cladding in the form of corrugated iron, and thin iron sheeting is common in Australia and the Pacific on small churches, generally with wooden frames. What we have here is very different. The method of construction resembles a railway station (as stated) or a factory.

Amandajm (talk) 12:37, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Rearrangement of pics

Generally it's preferred to have an exterior view as the lead pic. However, churches with spires take up a great deal of "box space, down the right hand side, leaving no room for anything else. In this cas the valuable picture of the interior was pushed right down out of its section. A short wide pic is always best in the lead, so I have taken a pragmatic approach and reversed the pics, with the end result that the taller pic fits quite nicely without causing too much sandwiching of text when viewed on a wide screen. Amandajm (talk) 00:07, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

The new formatting violates MOS:IMAGELOCATION. Pics should not be placed on the left of the start of (sub)section, as it makes it more difficult for readers to find the beginning of the text. —Bloom6132 (talk) 00:13, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Placement of pic. Not a problem when the heading is a major one. The rules are simplistic and intended for beginners. They need rewriting. As I said, there is a need to be pragmatic about this sort of thing. If the rule plainly doesn't work, then do it differently. The rules are not set in cement, and the current layout pushes the beautiful interior so far down (on a normal screen) that I didn't even notice it at first. It is, in fact, a very significant interior.

The expression:

The construction of the cathedral began in the mid-17th century and it opened in 1657. Due to the natural disasters that have plagued Fort-de-France over the years, the current structure dates back to 1895 and was built with an iron frame in order to withstand these calamities. It is the seventh church to be erected on the site; it was designed by Gustave Eiffel and built by Pierre-Henri Picq.[2]

• The first sentence is OK, except for one thing: the implication in this sentence is that this is the date of the present church.
• The second sentence "Due to the natural disasters that have plagued Fort-de-France over the years, the current structure dates back to 1895...." is clumsy. The idea of "natural disaster" is not intrinsically linked to the date of the church. A church can be founded at any date. The linked ideas are two: 1. seven churches on the site 2. iron frame.
• It is the seventh church to be erected on the site; it was designed by Gustave Eiffel and built by Pierre-Henri Picq.[2]

Why are these two sentences linked with a semi-colon? The fact that it is the seventh church is linked to "disasters". It isn't linked in any way to the names of the architect and builder. Why are they joined? The fact that is linked to Gustave Eiffel is obviously that it is an iron-framed building.

Why are you so persistent about reverting my edits, when you sent this thing for a DYK with the noun omitted from the first sentence, and the whole notion of the significance of the iron structure (note: "structure" not "reinforcing") seriously underplayed?

Amandajm (talk) 00:32, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

"Why are you so persistent about reverting my edits" – I'd like to ask you the same question. You keep trying to install your version of formatting on every church article I edit (not just this one, also Sacred Heart Cathedral (Kamloops)), under the deluded notion that it's the only correct one and that I'm the one whose always wrong. Get real! And are you seriously going to pick on one noun? Big deal! At least I had the effort to expand this article – unlike you, who can only complain and complain about my edits. Sheesh! If you're actually going to nitpick one noun as the be all, end all of this article, you have some serious re-evaluating to do. —Bloom6132 (talk) 01:25, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

(Just for the record: 1. My changes to Sacred Heart Cathedral (Kamloops) were to the expression in a muddled list of interior and exterior features. No edit was made to the formatting. 2. "on every church article I edit" amounts to the present article plus one other. Amandajm (talk) 04:52, 8 October 2013 (UTC))

P.S. "The rules are simplistic and intended for beginners. They need rewriting … The rules are not set in cement" – sounds more like WP:IDONTLIKEIT and WP:ICANTHEARYOU kind of mentality. Basically, are you saying the rules are only good when they suit your needs and support your arguments? —Bloom6132 (talk) 01:00, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

No. What I am saying is that the rules (about picture layout in particular) provide a very simplistic guideline. Most of the editors on Wikipedia have little or no experience in layout, and do it badly. The rules are directed at making things as simple as possible.

And, yes, there is a statement in the Wikipedia MOS that the rules are not set. They can be broken. If you know how to break the rules to the best possible effect, then it's OK to break them.

Stop acting as if you are being picked on. Leaving the crucial word out of your first sentence, and then putting it up for DYK, isn't good. If it was a minor typo, you might not even notice, but it wasn't.

Cathedrals and major churches is one of the subjects I write about: Architecture of cathedrals and great churches, St Paul's Cathedral, St Peter's Basilica, Wells Cathedral, Chester Cathedral, Carlisle Cathedral. Amandajm (talk) 01:30, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

"Stop acting as if you are being picked on." – I'm calling a spade a spade – you are indeed nitpicking and are doing quite a good job at it. This article checked out against every DYK criteria (which isn't as high as you're putting it to be, like a GA) and was passed by two experienced DYK editors. Quit trying to make a mountain out of a molehill and stop lecturing me about what's good and what's not good. And I seriously couldn't give a flying fart in space about what you edit – just because you write about the subject doesn't make you an expert on it. So don't expect people to listen to everything you have to say about cathedrals because you edit that topic frequently. —Bloom6132 (talk) 01:43, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Writing about architecture is not easy, unless you are experienced at it. Writing about history is easier, because it can follow chronologically.

With architecture, deal with the exterior, completely first. Staring with the most basic stuff, like built of granite in the Neo-Gothic style. It has a nave, side aisles and two towers at the west. It does/doesn't have porch, transepts, projecting chancel. Detailed descriptions start at the facade. Get it all out of the way before you go inside. Start with what you see from the door and give the structure first: It has columns, arches, galleries, semi-circular roof (or whatever, then the details of altar, reredos, organ, windows. Leave the thing to last that you want to say the most about, either the organ or the windows generally.

Learn the terms. You need to use facade, (meaning specifically the "front face" not the "side") or west front (don't use westwerk unless the building is German), nave, aisle, transept, chancel, choir, apse, porch. In a grand church the door might be called a portal. They are all shown on the page Architecture of cathedrals and great churches. Hope that this is helpful for your further enterprise in bringing lesser known churches to the front page. Amandajm (talk) 01:47, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Your "experienced DYK editors" should have read the first sentence much better than they did. You haven't been "picked on" for anything other than the omission of that noun. I haven't reverted your edits to the lead. I have merely told you why I made the changes that I did, by way of explanation. Time to move forward. Over and out! Amandajm (talk) 01:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)