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Peter Wall

• Featured article candidates/Peter Wall/archive1

Self nomination. I'm nominating this article for featured article because I think it's about as well-sourced and comprehensive as it can be, especially given that it concerns a man who, though repeatedly described as "flamboyant," also clearly keeps his private life to himself. (He refuses to give out his date of birth, for instance, and there's no information that I can find about his family life.) It's short but, I hope, comprehensive as well as well-formed and well-written. It also a bit of a stylistic test case for me, as I have a theory that more of our shorter articles could be much improved if they had sections providing some kind of context (I've argued this at various FAC and GAN discussions); here, that section is one on "Vancouver real estate." I should note that I have various possible minor conflicts of interest: I live in the Vancouver downtown, a block away from One Wall Centre, in a building that I discover in the course of my research for this article was Wall's first downtown project; I have met Wall's daughter twice, thanks also to a peripheral involvement in the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. However, I have done my utmost to ensure that the article is NPOV, adopts the appropriate tone, and respects BLP polices. I look forward to reviewers' feedback on possible improvement. jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I should add that I am the main contributor, indeed practically the only one if you discount one editor who repeatedly tried to get the article speedy deleted yesterday, though I thank User:Clayoquot for some copy-editing and for adding the image, and User:Elcobbola for removing some tags. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment Needs an infobox and could use an image.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Hi. I considered adding an infobox, but considering how little public information there is about his private life (date of birth, marriage, etc.), I figured it wasn't worth it. The article has an image, of course, but I presume you mean one of him? Even putting aside copyright concerns, I've come across exactly one picture of him anywhere: a very poor quality black and white image from a photocopied version of a UBC student-run magazine. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Ah. I've found an image here. I doubt we'd be able to use it, though it'd be nice as it includes also his brother (now president of the corporation he founded) and he realtor with whom he frequently works, Bob Rennie. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Have you tried contacting him/his office and asking for a free-licensed image? Misplaced Pages:Example requests for permission might be useful. --Carnildo (talk) 19:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  No, and I'm a little wary to. I'm not at all sure what he'd make of the article. I think it is balanced, NPOV, impeccably sourced, and ideally reflects this colourful character in as colourful a way as an encyclopedia allows. I fear he might want it to be rather more promotional. Pace those who think it is promotional at present, I think he'd have other views. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:33, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. The editor who was yesterday keen on a speedy delete is today still bothered about the article's tone, suggesting indeed that it needs to be rewritten. I have invited him to comment here. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comments
  • Who describes Wall as the city's "ultimate business maverick".? Right now, it sounds like weasel wording.

    Hmm, that's sourced to an article (by journalist Ashley Ford) in The Province. I'm not entirely sure why it should be weasel wording; perhaps you can explain? I should note that this is clearly a fairly colourful character, and so I have tried to be extra-vigilant about making sure I was quoting above all when describing his character. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • The article can use some more wikifying, such as Ukraine, Second World War, University of British Columbia in the lead.

    I admit I'm fairly light on wikilinks on the whole; I've added the first and third of these, however. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • When did he enroll at UBC?

    The source doesn't say; again, he's pretty much quiet about such details in most interviews. Generally, he prefers to talk about property and money. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Some material in the biography section may fit better in the philanthropy section.

    Ah, the UBC donation? I thought about that, and indeed reference back from the Philanthropy to what is indeed his largest single gift. However, I rather liked the flow in linking a) his not completing his original degree, b) the donation, and c) the honorary degree; it all rather seemed to fit together. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure about using the {{main}} template in the One Wall Centre section. Instead, I would probably just wikify One Wall Centre in the first line of the section. Though, this might be a matter of preferences.

    I'm easy about that, but figure that this is more or less summary style. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Overall, good work on this article in such a short time. --Aude (talk) 15:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - my view is that not all articles can be featured articles, which I realise may be controversial. The thing I am concerned about here is that Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, Peter Wall, One Wall Centre, and Wall Financial Corporation (currently a redirect) are really only linking among themselves. I know it is not in the featured article criterion, but I feel that the best examples of our work should be mature enough to have a comprehensive set of incoming links as well as outgoing links. If you find yourself struggling to find places in which to add incoming links, then that indicates that this topic area may be a bit of a cul-de-sac, an endpoint rather than a nexus, if you know what I mean. In other words, how will people arrive at this article and from where? When the "what links here" lists are a bit more populated would be a better time to come back here. An example of what I mean is here. Carcharoth (talk) 15:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this. And indeed, as per some recent discussions elsewhere, I have some sympathy with your point of view. But at least at present, the FA criteria do not (any longer) include article length, or even notability. Moreover, as I suggest above, I thought that this could be something of a test case for how to deal with such shorter articles, i.e. by providing a relatively substantial (without being overwhelming) section to contextualize the subject. This is what I have suggested in other FAC discussions (here, for instance). I thought I might as well try it out myself. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Might I suggest historical biographical stubs as another area to test the waters on? Joseph Spence (author), George Fownes are good examples of biographical stubs where it is not yet clear what the final articles will end up looking like, though it already seems clear there is not much information to work with. Stephen Duck is another one. John Allan Broun is another historical figure. Unlike modern figures, it is unlikely that new material will emerge, so once all the material is found, it should be pretty clear how extensive the article can be. Some figures, though, will never be more than footnotes. William the Englishman for example, and Hermodorus of Salamis, Giuliano Argentario, and William of Ireland. Some of the people whose names have down to us from antiquity are only mentioned in one or two sources. Literally. Rhoecus for example. Compare Ptolemy (mythological) with the other Ptolemys. What can be done with articles that are technically comprehensive, but can't really be longer than a few paragraphs? It is possible sometimes, if you know where to look and what to write. See John Chamberlain (letter writer), John de Critz, and Paul van Somer I. As you said, getting the context in there is vital to giving articles some meat, but I still think some articles are essentially serving as centralised footnotes serving many different articles. Carcharoth (talk) 16:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh, one test at a time! And this article has already caused me a fair amount of grief. But I am of the opinion that a range of such relatively short articles could be much improved with some attempt to provide context. I don't think that necessarily means they're footnotes. At least not in this case: but you can't understand this guy (Peter Wall) without setting him within the context of the Vancouver property boom of the past twenty-five years. That may not in fact be a criterion for FA. But I think it's a move that would improve many of our articles. (Again, I could refer to discussions in which I've made this very suggestion.) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Not to go too far off topic, but my main problem with featuring stuff like Getting It: The psychology of est, is that it seems to be a reversal of the correct order in which effort should be expended. If that article can be brought to that standard, why not focus the efforts on the more educational article, which would be Erhard Seminars Training? For instance, J. R. R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings are featured (though there are problems and they could be improved), plus The Lord of the Rings (1978 film). But when you look around for other Tolkien-related articles, it should be clear where the effort should be focused. ie. the books and the broad articles like Middle-earth (defeatured). Actually, I see The Hobbit is at FAC. Must go and look in on that. Sorry for dashing off and sorry for rambling on here! (Someone might move all this to the talk page). Carcharoth (talk) 16:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I have a similar sentiment which I've had since I started editing here. I also posted a message about my feelings for this nearly three months ago, which I still feel. In the end, though, people will usually only edit whatever interests them, and that's more than you can ask for. Gary King (talk) 17:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I understand this point, but in this case I'm not sure it's accurate. Vancouver is already an FA, for instance, and in general the articles on the city are in pretty good nick. (More generally, though again I understand, it is of course easy for people to be daunted by the big articles; heck, I should really be writing Latin American literature and Latin American culture, or even Latin America, articles to which I did contribute some time ago before reigning in my scope somewhat.) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Gary King (talk · contribs)

• I don't know if it's actually possible, but this article feels somewhat under-wikified to me. This somewhat echoes the comments above stating that this article is really only linking to the articles mentioning above, thus completing a circle of sorts. Perhaps at least some of the names mentioned in some of the paragraphs could be linked?

  And thanks for this comment. I do wonder about wikifying for the sake of it. I kind of like the relatively low-key approach here. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• I looked at the references, and they are using {{citation}}?! Madness! I would either suggest using {{cite web}}, or adding a period to the end of each citation and formatting the accessdates correctly so that they conform to the preferences of each user.

Gary King (talk) 17:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• I'm a big fan of the "citation" templates (though I know that SandyG vehemently disagrees ;) ). There's a period on the end of each citation in the "References" section; I don't believe that's necessary in the notes. And I believe the accessdates are also formatted correctly. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 17:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  I'm not sure if a period at the end is truly required, so I'm not too bothered about it. The dates, however, are really, really incorrectly formatted; please wikilink them so they conform to individual user preferences. I'm curious as to why you prefer {{citation}} over {{cite web}}? When you look deeper into both templates, you will see that the code for the former is worse than the latter, probably because it was created earlier. There are certain fields that, if used together, would also make the template look strange, and it is missing some simple field checking for certain parameters. It is practically FUBAR — I wish I could use {{cite book}} together with {{harvnb}} and not this. Gary King (talk) 18:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Ah, there was a point at which my talk page was footnote central. See here. What I got out of that discussion was that "citation" may be broken, but "cite X" is more broken. I do, however, recognize that not everyone agrees. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Okay, but I still would at least like to see the accessdates formatted properly before supporting this article. Gary King (talk) 18:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  I'm onto it.  :) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Done. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Hmm. There seems to be a difference of opinion re. accessdates. Do our MoS experts have a view? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

  Ah, undone. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment Why is an obviously promotional article being considered for featured article? This is like the second time in a week this has happened. What's going on with wikipedia? Is there that much of a shortage of appropriate articles? Baseball Bugs 18:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi. It would help if you pointed out in what ways you feel the article is "obviously promotional." If you can point to specific instances that could be improved, that would be much appreciated. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You first. Tell me why this guy is special to you. Prove that my good faith is warranted. Baseball Bugs 18:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Heh. He's not "special." He is a notable figure in the town in which I live, who has received both national and international press coverage. He has very literally, and quite dramatically, shaped the urban environment here, in a city whose recent history is particularly dynamic and (I think) particularly interesting. As for potential conflicts of interest, please see my first comment, above. But I don't see anything promotional in the article. I'm happy, however, to be pointed to any areas that you find problematic. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

You have answered the question of why he's special to you. No one writes an article without having some personal interest in the subject (and I don't necessarily mean financial interest, just intellectual interest). But I'm sure this article will help boost the subject's financial interests. Which is precisely why it shouldn't be a featured article. Baseball Bugs 18:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I honestly see no way in which this article would boost Wall's financial interests. But please clarify: are you suggesting that any article on him would do so, or is there a specific failing in this article? The latter I can do something about; the former would require rather more wholesale changes to Misplaced Pages. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That is really convoluted logic, no offense. I mean, first of all, it's pretty blatant that the admin that wrote this article will not profit from it. Should we remove anything from Misplaced Pages that might result in a purchase of something related to the topic after reading it? Should anything that earns a profit not be allowed on Misplaced Pages? Should an article on a businessperson or company only be allowed as a feature if it somehow harms the subject's reputation? --Smashville 19:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear. I'm going to go off on a tangent again. There are several articles that it could be argued are promotional, though shoe polish (!) is not one of them (had to mention that one). The one that springs to mind is Wii, which was promoted a mere three months after the product had launched, and appeared on the main page a month later. It might be a great article, but surely a sense of decorum might have suggested that featuring it on the Main Page while it was still actively competing for sales in a worldwide market could have waited a bit longer. Super Nintendo Entertainment System made the mistake of launching in 1990-1993, instead of waiting for Misplaced Pages to come along... :-) On the other hand, I've just seen that Laplace-Runge-Lenz vector is threatening (sorry, it wins by a country mile) the title of most obscure featured article, which I had thought was aldol reaction. Ah, no, wait. I've rediscovered the time when I thought Misplaced Pages had turned into a pharmacy: Baby Gender Mentor. This is what the blurb looked like when I first saw it on the front page. Right. I should now read Peter Hall and see if I can make some constructive, on-topic comments (sorry!). Carcharoth (talk) 19:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Peter Hall is thataway... but Peter Wall is just over here... ;) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:39, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

My other question is - what product or service is this article supposedly advertising? Vancouver? A 100 million dollar building? Is Peter Wall a lady of the night? --Smashville 19:45, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Please explain what UBC is an abbreviation for in the references.

  UBC is the University of British Columbia, as per the article text. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you say University of British Columbia, but never connect that name with the abbreviation in the text. (I've got a particular pet peeve about unexplained abbreviations) Ealdgyth - Talk 20:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I have a bit of a pet peeve the other way; I've fixed the article, however, in such a way that I hope it should satisfy both of us. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Same for TSX.

  TSX is the site name; it's the Toronto Stock Exchange. Again, this should be obvious for those starting from the text, I think. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

See above. (grins) Ealdgyth - Talk 20:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Is http://www.straight.com/article-97208/hong-kong-changed-us a blog? It looks like the publisher should be the Vancouver Free Press, but the listed publisher is Georgia Strait?

  The Georgia Strait is the local independent weekly newspaper. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Some of the newspapers/journals, I've not heard of. Burnaby Now? The Province?

  The Province is one of the city's two major daily newspapers. (In one of those confusing tricks of the market, however, I believe it has the same owner as the Vancouver Sun. All the more reason to read the Strait.) I admit I hadn't heard of Burnaby Now, but then I don't live in Burnaby. (It's the next city over.) This is probably the weakest of the sources (though I accessed it via a major database). I can change it if you want: finding someone who's saying that the Vancouver property bubble is about to burst shouldn't be too hard; the nice thing about that article is that it was a) recent and b) useful in its discussion of the impact of the US subprime disaster. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Given the nature of Wikipolitics, probably should go with a more well known source. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll have a look later on. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

What I've done is kept the Burnaby source, for a local view, and added a national journal (Canadian Business) for a broader view that also takes in Vancouver. Both are very recent; I wanted something from the last couple of months, max, as this whole discussion is so up and down. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Otherwise sources look okay. Links all worked with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments from Maralia

• "Loaned C$6,000 by his mother to build a house, he sold it for $13,000 before she could even move in" - She loaned him money to build her a house?

  (NB I changed this to "given" in line with a doublecheck of the sources.) I don't know what this is about, either, but essentially the same story is told in two profile pieces. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "Over the seven years at the turn of the 1990s," - what seven years would be at the turn of the 1990s?

  This is a 1994 source that states "over the past seven years." It's a book, what's more, so I suspect the article was written in 1993. It is a bit clumsy, I realize. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "the urban economy grew fast" - quickly

  This one I don't understand; both are adverbs, and I try to go for the principle that fewer syllables are better. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "the 1990s saw an influx of immigrants and capital from Hong Kong in the lead-up to the colony's handover from the British to the Chinese neared." - looks like this sentence suffers from a botched rewrite

  This got fixed a couple of edits ago. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "As the New York Times notes" - picky, but The New York Times

  changed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "Tiananmen Square killings" - good spot for an interwiki link

  Ah, yes, I meant to do that... Done. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "Moreover, given the city's geography (with mountains to the North and the ocean to the West" - no reason to capitalize north and west here; you're talking about a direction, not a place

  Changed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:06, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "as the Globe and Mail comments" - The Globe and Mail

  Done. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "that "the tower's windows were not transparent, and that the building threatened to be a 'dark, forbidding obelisk' on the highest ground in the downtown core."" - logical punctuation for this quote would be outside the quotation marks

  Actually, no, but I've long since given up even pretending that there's anything logical about logical punctuation; I've changed it. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "offered the city $2 million to $3 million" - $2–$3 million, per WP:$

  Done. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• "Wall has stated that his interest in this project came from the fact that it was a way to help the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra" - I know you can come up with a better way to phrase this :)

  Will give it a go.  ;) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  And now fixed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Apologies if any of these items has already been addressed before this post - I drafted my notes a couple hours ago, but got called away from the computer in the interim. Maralia (talk) 19:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in with a few comments: (1) Interwiki? Don't you mean a wikilink? So Tiananmen Square massacre (or rephrase if needed); (2) MoS says "Ranges are preferably formatted with one rather than two currency signifiers " - so it would be $2–3 million (though I always wince at the literal interpretation of that as from $2 (ie. TWO dollars) to $3 million. Carcharoth (talk) 20:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Double fixed. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:17, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comments from Carcharoth - a few brief comments.
  • The lead needs to give some indication of how old he is. Is he in his twenties, thirties, forties, or what? At least give the first verifiable date you can find for him that has any relation to his age (here, 1958, the university one). Or treat it like those historical painters that you are told were floruit (active) from a certain year.

    Hmm. It does say he was a child shortly after WWII. I did originally have a parenthetical remark about the fact that he refuses to divulge his age; that fact is in a couple of sources. It does seem perhaps a touchy issue with him? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Yes. Probably best to leave it at that. I just wanted some year in the lead. Not everyone knows the dates of the Second World War, especially if it's not linked. Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Fixed for those benighted souls who don't know. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I would link property developer, so people can read about the label he is rejecting.

    Done. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Ah, but you've used property developer. He sounds more like an real estate investor to me, with later building development (as opposed to land development). Though he (or his company) has probably dabbled in all three. Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Everyone (except him) calls him a developer; that's what he's known for, though is company (especially before 1989) was much more heavily invested in managing rentals. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I would link Stalinist repression to something. Great Purge would be too specific. Maybe if more details or a date were known, then something from Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union would fit?

    Yes, I cast around for a suitable wikilink, too, and likewise rejected Great Purge. Though this fact is mentioned twice in the sources, no details are provided. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Ultimately, lack of such information will be a problem. Sometimes you have to wait for the official biography or later work by historians. Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Here I disagree. And so would Wall. He'd no doubt say that what's important about him is the impact he's had on the Vancouver property market and skyline. One day a biographer may link all this up in some psychoanalytic way with the guy's childhood trauma. But in the meantime, I don't feel like I'm missing all that miuch. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:30, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • The rest of the article is OK. Except the Philanthropy section feel like an afterthought.

    Mostly for BLP concerns, I wanted to finish on an up. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Yeah, but I hate it when an article dribbles out of steam. So many features articles don't actually finish. They hang in mid-air. <sigh>. Admittedly, as a BLP, the story is not yet finished. Something about honours and future plans (if possible to source) would end it better. Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Overall, though, the article still feels lightweight. It feels like stuff is being stretched, and it is more about the Vancouver real estate boom than Peter Wall. It would feel more right, I think, if a section on Peter Wall appeared in something like United States housing bubble (but written to focus on the Canadian and Vancouver housing market). I guess what I am saying is that in 20 or 30 years, it is not clear what Peter Wall's legacy will be. We shouldn't be trying to guess that, but I think it would be better to put him in context in an economic article, rather than put the real estate stuff in context in this article, if you see what I mean?

    I see what you're saying but I'm not persuaded about that. He is indeed integral to the Vancouver bubble (oops! If it is a bubble, of course...) But he's made a mark in (literally) more concrete ways than most on a major North American urban metropolis. He's also a suitably colourful character, even if he is at the same time rather enigmatic. As I've continued with some further expansion today, I really do think (though I say so myself) that it's a fairly well-rounded little article. In fact, almost all the better in that it doesn't go on about his pets or favourite food or whatever. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Sure, but step back and read the whole article and see how much is about him and how much about the real estate history? The Peter Wall#Vancouver real estate section is the meat of the article, and, to be frank, that and the One Wall Centre section are the best bits of the article. The other bits are stretched and thin and collections of disparate facts trying to flesh out a biography (sorry to be so harsh). Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    A little harsh, but I generally agree with you. What's more, I doubt that the article would be improved if we had more trivia about his home life or whatever. The point is how he helped make the Vancouver real estate boom, and how the boom in turn made him. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Perhaps it might help if you could point to where you think the article is stretched. I've tried to ensure that there's very little fluff, in fact. (There's plenty more material that I could put in, just for the sake of it, but it wouldn't actually add very much; that's a disease that can infect such WP articles, too.) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    By stretched (restoring your comment after an edit conflict, sorry), I mean the lack of basic biographical information others have pointed out. This can still be a very good article, but to be featured it will have to wait until official biographies allow the corners to be fleshed out, IMO. At the moment, there are fragments of a biography hanging on a skeleton based on his real estate investing and building career. Carcharoth (talk) 20:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    I've been thinking about this. I think that you raise a number of imporant points, including whether or not it would be possible at all to write a featured article about this figure (or someone like him). Perhaps even more importantly, you (and others, such as Maria) have been raising the issue of what we expect of such an article. If we're thinking about equivalents with biographies, this article aims to be much more like a biography that might have the title, say, Peter Wall: A Life in Business than, say, The Unknown Peter Wall or The Immigrant's Dilemma: Peter Wall and the Traumatic Effects of Stalin's Purges. I like more psychoanalytic or muck-raking biographies as much as the next person; but their not the only ones. Interestingly, the quoted comments from Jean Franco here are germane, I think. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• OK, that's the comments done. Sorry for the off-topic stuff, and now I will go and read Peter Hall (lots of them, but all uniformly boring - well, compared to this guy)!! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 20:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Heh, many thanks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • A few more things I spotted. Linking within quotes can be very controversial, but there is a lot of local stuff that could do with explaining (you are local, right?) - such as "Condo king" (not everyone will know this refers to condominium), "Bentley Turbo-R sedan", "uncoupled from its Interior" (is that the Canadian Interior or the downtown interior of Vancouver?), "more of a Pacific Rim city"; you should link Hong Kong (if you link Vancouver, you should link Hong Kong); "the downtown peninsula" - what does this refer to? The next sentence explains this, but you should do this the other way round - explain the geography first. Oh, and "Moreover, given the city's geography (with mountains to the north and the ocean to the west, and the downtown itself on a peninsular)" - change 'peninsular' to 'peninsula'. You call One Wall Centre a "tower". Why not call it (and link to) skyscraper? Should really link Death Star and Darth Vader. "Lotus Land" - is this a region of Vancouver or a nickname for a wider area, like B.C.? The redirect takes us to the Vancouver article, but the term is not explained there. "Sub-Zero fridge and a Wolf range with red knobs" - Sub-Zero and Wolf - which companies are these - I can guess what the intent is here, but the right links would help people get to a picture of the things and that might trigger the right associations. "rah-rah" (yes, I do overlink...), "To live in B.C., you're lucky. To live in the Lower Mainland, you're very lucky. To live in Vancouver" - need to explain the geography here, and start by linking - British Columbia, OK, Vancouver, OK, but what is Lower Mainland? Presumably somewhere in between the sizes of the other two regions with all three being successively within each other (if you see what I mean). Carcharoth (talk) 20:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    (ec) Yes, I very consciously decided not to wikilink within the quotations; I'd be interested to hear from the MoS mavens. I am also, it becomes clear, but lighter on the wikilinks than you (though I see that Tony1 is lighter still!). Condominium's linked later on. Fixed peninsula, thanks. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:04, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    I updated my Lotus Land comment, though the Bentley Turbo-R link is staying red. My view is that if you don't link, you should explain in a footnote. The sequence BC -> Lower Mainland -> Vancouver is not understandable by non-locals unless you link or explain. Carcharoth (talk) 21:10, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    • Oh, look, some of those links told me what I needed to know! :-) I like Lower Mainland. Now, let's see if the debate over linking from within quotes ever got settled... I also found Sub-Zero Refrigerator, which mentions Wolf Range Corporation (no article yet). Carcharoth (talk) 21:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

      Ah. I was baffled by Sub-Zero and the Wolf thing. I'm clearly not in Wall's target demographic, even if I do in fact live in one of his buildings! (And no Sub-Zero fridge here, by the way. :( ) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

      Maybe it is the red knob thing? (and no, that wasn't meant to be funny, though it probably is). :-) Still looking for the linking within quotes guideline. Carcharoth (talk) 21:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

      I've caved, at least partially, and wikilinked Lower Mainland (because it gave you such joy) and Sub Zero fridge (because it gave me such joy). --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  • It was Bentley Turbo R (dunno where you got your hyphen from). The linking in quotes guideline is here. Looks like it got eviscereated (simplified?). You'll need to go to the talk page archives for some nice long debates. In fact, there was a separate guideline at one point, which degenerate into an unseemly wrangle over whether to delete it because it was started by a banned user... See Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Quotations should not contain wikilinks. Aah. Memory lane! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 21:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    You see, this is where I think too many WP articles start to lose the wood for the trees. It's very obvious here what's signified by the Bentley: it's a very expensive car, that Wall doesn't mind paying for, as he isn't counting the pennies, and he feels happy to slag off at the same time as he's posing by it. I don't see any great advantage in giving a link to a page that'll tell me that car's precise cc. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:25, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

    Ah, you've been reading WP:CONTEXT haven't you? :-) One person's context is another person's random surfing, um, I mean information gathering and connecting (see Misplaced Pages:Build the web). Anyway, a more helpful set of links than that deletion debate are: the nascent proposal from June 2006, Misplaced Pages:Only make links that are relevant to the context (the guideline it got merged to), another very sparse section on not linking from within quotations, and, finally, some talk page discussion: Misplaced Pages talk:Quotations should not contain wikilinks (not many people find this, as it is the talk page of a redirect, but it is in the archives of the redirect destination's talk page), Misplaced Pages talk:Only make links that are relevant to the context#Links in quotations, and Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Archive 37#Wikilinks when_quoting. And in general, the archives of pages like Misplaced Pages talk:Only make links that are relevant to the context are well worth reading if you get the time. Carcharoth (talk) 21:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose - The article seems incomplete to be a featured article, lacking adequate illustrations, an infobox, etc. (Thus, failing comprehensiveness.) If this information is not known about this developer, then perhaps it is not possible to write a featured-quality article about him. Even some general information would be helpful. (If this type of information, very basic information, is not available in published secondary sources, then I have some concerns for the notability of this topic. However, I'd leave that to a AfD review, not a FA review.) My recommendation is to take this to the GA process and refine it from there, before resubmitting it for FA. I'd also recommending waiting because the attempt, which you point out, to speedy delete the article implies that there is controversy. JRP (talk) 20:13, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Well, in this article's short but action-packed life, it's already been to AFD, and handsomely sailed through. I reply above about an infobox. But what do you mean by "general information"? The article deliberately sets out to provide the general context about the Vancouver real estate boom (see discussion above, again). What other general information would you require to understand this person and his contributions? NB I did submit to GA, but withdrew because I figured in fact it was ready for FA now. I don't see that a GA review would help much at this point. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  The featured article criteria do not require infoboxes or illustrations. Comprehensiveness means only that major facts and details are not neglected. If such a fact or detail has indeed been neglected, please articulate so it may be addressed. ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 20:52, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  By my read through, it is not comprehensive. It does not include enough fundamental information about the person that we could possibly consider it featured. How old is he? When is he born? You have a smattering of facts in there, but no biography detailed enough to be a featured article. If there are no secondary sources availabel that have that information, then perhaps this individual is not notable enough to have a featured article about him. The fact that you don't have enough information to populate an infobox is an example of this problem, though I respect that you don't necessarily need an infobox if one weren't appropriate.

  Again, he doesn't give out his age. But I'm not sure how important it is. You have a rough idea of how old he is: arrived in Canada as a child in 1948, gets going in real estate in 1958, still more or less at it today. How would things change if you knew he was (say) 72? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Second, I can't say that this article is stable. It was just created a handful of days ago and was nominated for deletion. At the very minimum, you need a cooling off period. I have strong reservations about any FAC for an article this new, no matter the caliber of the author.

  I think it's going through AFD has helped with its stability and reaffirmed the subject's notability. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Third, it is not well-written. The paragraphs are choppy, the prose needs work. I would try and consolidate the brief paragraphs and work to pad out the sections. Perhaps a peer review or a copyeditor would be best able to help with this.

  More specifics would be grand, so I could attend to them. It's had a pretty thorough series of copy-edits, in fact, not least from Tony1. No doubt it could do with more. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Fourth, the lead seems to be a bit choppy as well. It actually reads a bit like an advertisement, especially the first paragraph. I'm sure that for someone called the "ultimate business maverick", there are similar quotations of a less generous character which might round out the article, to make it more neutral. (And who said that, anyway?)

  Ah, maybe here's a problem... you think "maverick" is generous? (The source is right there, by the way.) I think it's clearly double-edged. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  Fifth, the criteria does call for the article to be illustrated as appropriate. This article clearly is not. It has a single image which is only related to one section of the article. To have a modern biography without an image of the person discussed does not seem to be a good practice. It's fine for non-featured articles, certainly, and perhaps even Good Articles (though they want images also), but not Featured Articles.

  I'd be interested in seeing the regulation about this. I've pointed above to a non-free image should it be seemed essential. Here I defer to my Russian friend, however. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:38, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  WP:NFCC#1 effectively precludes fair use images of living persons. ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 21:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

  I stand by my objection. I'm not sure this article would pass a good article review, let alone a FAC. I recommend the submitter move the process there. JRP (talk) 21:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comments: Seeing as how this article was only created yesterday, I wouldn't have recommended rushing into an FAC nom so quickly. I recognize that you are highly respected editor, jbmurray, but I think this was a rash move. Although the short length doesn't concern me, the lack of context and comprehensibility does. Some examples:
• The lead states that his family immigrated to Canada after WWII (btw, no wikilink?), but in the body of the article it only gives a year, 1948. Did they move as a direct response to the war, or its effects? That's what the lead is (perhaps incorrectly) implying.
• In fact, no concrete dates are mentioned in the intro, which makes the timeline difficult to follow from the beginning. Wall started in real estate around the time he was still a student. When? His company, Wall Financial Corporation, built One Wall Centre... When?
• Described as the city's "ultimate business maverick", he rejects the label "developer", saying "I just make some money investing in business ideas and projects". Although interesting, this quote doesn't appear anywhere but the lead. Remember to keep WP:LEAD in mind.

  Regarding the above three points, I was indeed trying to follow WP:LEAD in providing an overview, to be followed (in the main article) by specifics, or what specifics we have; but that quotations don't get repeated. The way I've done it may be my particular take on WP:LEAD, but I think it's comprehensible. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• It seems superfluous to name an entire section "Biography" when, technically, shouldn't the entire article be a biography? So little information is seemingly available on his personal life, but his family and schooling would be more fitting in a "Personal life" section.

  Hmm. I think the differentiation makes sense. We don't have much on his personal life, but a lot on his public life, and the face that he gives the public. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Peter Wall's good fortune, although due also to his hard work and business intelligence, should be understood in the context of Vancouver's remarkable real estate boom of the 1990s and 2000s. Although sourced, this seems borderline flattery and non-WP:NPOV.

  I've wrestled with this a bit on the talk page. It is the most problematic sentence in the article, I think; at the same time, it seems to me necessary. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Critical reception/legacy/honors? Shouldn't a separate section be dedicated to how he's viewed, what impact he has made?

  I see that as threaded through the article. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That's what I've gathered from only a cursory read. I still know nothing about this man; the lack of comprehensibility (a key FA criteria) troubles me. Although many edits have been done to the article in less than twenty-four hours, I think a PR would have been much more suitable first step. María (habla conmigo) 20:40, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm troubled by what you say if you think that it's incomprehensible. But I'm not entirely sure what I can do about that. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

That was one of the complaints about last week's article, that in addition to being promotional it was "rushed" into featured article status - which again raises the question that no one has answered yet: Why are articles that a number of users (not just me) that are seen as promotional being pushed into FA status? Is there really such a shortage of articles about non-promotional topics? Baseball Bugs 21:01, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

As for my (perceived) "rush," I've discussed that. But there are two different issues: whether an article is rushed to FAC or whether it's rushed through FAC. There's plenty of time for discussion here. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:09, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I suspect secretly lots of people want to create an article in a single edit and see it go through FAC with no changes... :-) An impossible dream, I suspect, and probably not good in any case. Carcharoth (talk) 21:24, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I freely confess to being rather tickled about taking an article to FAC on during its first full day of life. On the other hand, I do think it's ready; this isn't some kind of joke nomination. I had put it in for GA Review, as I say, but withdrew it because I felt it was clearly already beyond that standard. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Meaning no disrespect, but this is exactly the type of hubris which will preclude you from taking any meaningful feedback from this process. I wish you the best on this and your future endeavors, but in many areas of this nomination you haven't so much responded to the criticism but rather stated why it didn't apply to you or was otherwise incorrect. If you step back and have a couple days to let the article rest in your mind, I'm positive that you will be able to improve it. I think it really does have promise. JRP (talk) 22:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you feel it's hubris; I feel it's quite the opposite. I.e. that I welcome the intense scrutiny that you get in the FAC process (but not GAN). I've tried to take all actionable issues into account, and to ask for more information about non-actionable issues. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:53, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

And again I ask, what product or service do you perceive this article to be advertising? --Smashville 23:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support—It's well-written and easily complies with WP's notability policy. Although his doctorate from UBC was honorary and not "earnt", and I disapprove of such things, it is nonetheless recognition of someone who doesn't fit the robber-baron mould. I have no sense that the article is a promotion. Perhaps if Wall had written it himself there'd be an issue under our rules, but he didn't. The article was written by a resident of Vancouver about a well-known identity of that city who has been active for many decades and has played a role in the modern development of the city—in both its physical infrastructure and culture. I like the contrast between the man's need for privacy and his public doings. Beats the celebrity-seeking that infects so much philanthrophy elsewhere. Pity there's no pic of him, but that's not a criterion. A few aspects of the tone and referencing might need a little tweaking. My only other suggestion is the addition of a few sentences positioning him among Canadian (a) real-estate tycoons, and (b) philanthropists. Perhaps he's the biggest player in both regards on the west coast. Is there are tradition of ph. in Canada, particularly by developers to cultural institutions? TONY (talk) 03:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

  I hope to add something about the impact of his donation to UBC, which has been written up in terms of a transformation in the ways in which Canadian universities thought about funding: rather than relying solely on the state, they now increasingly look for big ticket private donors; Wall's donation helped usher in that change. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

  • PS Objections above about length (rather than summary style), image use, and when the article was written are irrelevant to this process. TONY (talk) 03:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose - why not just drop the charade and give his business a link on the front page? This is about as genero-cruft as genero-cruft gets. --Badger Drink (talk) 07:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

  Help me here: What is genero-cruft?! --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. In response to a number of different concerns above, perhaps especially but not solely Maria's, I just did a major revision of the lead. The new lead attempts to show much more clearly what is important about this figure, tries to reflect the emphases and concerns of the article, and to concentrate on Wall's public persona rather than get distracted by his private life. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment: OK, I admit that nominating a day-old article is amusing. But bringing an article here to obtain essentially a peer review is really wasting resources that could be spent on other nominations. If I have to vote, I must oppose due to violation of 1b. The article is supposed to be about the man, but I learn practically nil about him. The "Biography" section, if one could call it that, is missing basic information: his birth date, his childhood, his family's moves in Europe, details on how he made his fortune after dropping out university, marriage status, etc.. The rest of the article is essentially about Vancouver's real estate development and his company's participation in various projects. If the information on the man is unavailable, then the article cannot be a FA. Perhaps this one could reach GA, but I am not even sure of that. There is nothing wrong with the article remaining GA or B-level until more information is released. Not all articles can or should become a FA. --RelHistBuff (talk) 08:19, 29 May 2008 (UTC)