Talk:Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan

Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan is currently an Agriculture, food and drink good article nominee. Nominated by Surtsicna (talk) at 09:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

An editor has placed this article on hold to allow improvements to be made to satisfy the good article criteria. Recommendations have been left on the review page, and editors have seven days to address these issues. Improvements made in this period will influence the reviewer's decision whether or not to list the article as a good article.

Short description: Botanical garden in Freising, Germany

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Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by Z1720 talk 03:23, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

( Comment or view )

( Article history links:

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Bust of Hansen at the Sichtungsgarten

... that Richard Hansen (bust pictured) experimented with artificial plant communities at the Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan?
- Reviewed:
- Comment: A bit of a rushed nomination. QPQ is coming as well as better hook proposals.

Created by Surtsicna (talk). Self-nominated at 23:56, 10 December 2023 (UTC). Post-promotion hook changes for this nom will be logged at Template talk:Did you know nominations/Richard Hansen (horticulturist); consider watching this nomination, if it is successful, until the hook appears on the Main Page.[reply]

@Surtsicna: This is still in need of a QPQ. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 16:10, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The nominator has not edited since the 19th and has yet to provide a QPQ. Unless a QPQ is provided and/or the nominator returns the nomination is now marked for closure as abandoned. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:19, 27 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Surtsicna (talk · contribs) 09:24, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 14:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Review to follow in a few days. —Kusma (talk) 14:37, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Content and prose review

I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

Lead: "the leading institution of its kind in Europe" at this point I'm not sure I have enough context to understand "of its type".

The context is in the previous sentence. I wished to avoid repetition, but I suppose I can repeat as well. Surtsicna (talk)

The translation of "Sichtungsgarten" as 'viewing garden' or 'sighting garden' is indeed only literal; it might be beneficial to mention the concept of Sichtung somewhere. "Trial garden" is a much better translation.

I think "screening garden" would be the best translation, but the sources (including HSWT's website) use "viewing garden" and "sighting garden". Surtsicna (talk)

lillium is a typo I guess.

It is. Surtsicna (talk)

Color schemes, herbaceous borders, plant communities: do all three have to be within the same sentence? These seem quite different concepts.

They have to be in the same sentence because they are different concepts. The sentence is about the garden's scope. Surtsicna (talk)

I will assume this is written in American English, but there is no template saying so.

It is written in the Oxford English Dictionary English, meaning DD-MM-YYYY dates and -ize spellings. I do admit that I have a penchant for the simpler American spelling (e.g. labor). This, I suppose, makes the text Canadian English, but I admit that I do not care how it is labeled. Surtsicna (talk)

Will have to check completeness of the lead later.
Development: Some context on trial gardens would be nice. When did they appear elsewhere? Where do they stand between botanical gardens that collect and the fields used for agricultural experiments by universities with an agricultural faculty?

I shall try to dig up something in the sources discussing Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan. I would prefer not to stray too far from the subject. Surtsicna (talk)

Also, a very short background on Foerster could be interesting (seems he was from Berlin and later lived in East Germany?) Same for Hansen.

We (sort of) have an article about Foerster, and I created a decent one about Hansen. I would prefer not to discuss the men here outside of their relationship with Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan. Surtsicna (talk)

It seems that Foerster did actually establish a Sichtungsgarten on the Freundschaftsinsel [de] in Potsdam.

I shall look to see if it is discussed anywhere in relation to Sichtungsgarten Weihenstephan. The whole sentence needs to be rewritten anyway because the cited source is no longer accessible at all. Sigh. Surtsicna (talk)

Who paid for the original establishment / who supplied the land? From this section, it seems this was from Hansen's private fortune.

That is an excellent question. None of the sources I have accessed say anything about this. I presume that the garden was founded on the land belonging to the agriculture and forestry college that had operated in Weihenstephan since the 19th century. Surtsicna (talk)

Institut für Stauden, Gehölze und angewandte Pflanzensociologie best to use {{lang|de|...}} for accessibility.

Done. Surtsicna (talk)

the sustainability of the plantings, which only later came to place an emphasis on plant form best to split this. Who placed this emphasis? Was it the plantings or the sustainability or perhaps the humans?

Clarified. Surtsicna (talk)

Die Stauden und ihre Lebensbereiche use lang tag.

Done. Surtsicna (talk)

1 million € shouldn't it be €1 million?
Comment I hope it is not too inappropriate to comment as an outside party, but in German the Euro symbol is written after the amount following a space (e.g. 6,71 €). In EU English it is written the same, and in the Republic of Ireland/United Kingdom/Malta it is written before without a space (e.g. €6.71). See Language and the euro. cookie monster 755 18:53, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That contradicts what is written at Euro sign (where it isn't unsourced as in the table in the article you quote): In English the euro sign – like the dollar sign ⟨$⟩ and the pound sign ⟨£⟩ – is usually placed before the figure, unspaced, the reverse of usage in many other European languages. When written out, "euro" is placed after the value in lower case; the plural is used for two or more units, and euro cents are separated with a full-stop, not a comma as in many countries (e.g., €1.50, 14 euros). The European Union's Interinstitutional Style Guide (for EU staff) states that the euro sign should be placed in front of the amount without any space in English, but after the amount in most other languages. The present article is written in American English. Do you have evidence that Americans usually write $1 but 3€ ? —Kusma (talk) 19:51, 22 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, if that is what Euro sign says with a citation, use that. If Language and the euro has incorrection information, it should be removed cookie monster 755 16:45, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Corrected. Thank you for chiming in, CookieMonster755. Surtsicna (talk)

What is the current state of funding under Duthweiler?

Presumably unchanged. There have been no reports of the private sponsorship idea taking off after it was slammed by virtually everyone. Surtsicna (talk)

Uses: "herbaceous perennials" is a MOS:SEAOFBLUE.

Is it? Both links are essential, and I see no way to break them apart without the sentence becoming unnatural. Surtsicna (talk)

"Prairie-style plantings are particularly tested" do you mean "A particular focus of tests is on planting in prairie style" or are more tests being run on those plantings that happen to be prairie style?

Clarified. Surtsicna (talk)

"no real equivalent in the English-speaking world": does he mention near equivalents? RHS Garden Wisley seems to have been one of the first experimental gardens?

He does mention Wisley. Added. Surtsicna (talk)

Composition: We will need to discuss image use in the article. With larger thumbnail size, the gallery here is split in two lines and doesn't look good. In Monobook on a wide screen, it looks worse. (The problem is the mix of floating images and non-floating galleries).

That's disappointing. Could you please edit the layout to look good on your device and I'll then see whether it looks good on mine? Surtsicna (talk)

A map would be nice; I am not sure many readers realise that it is possible to zoom in the infobox map and actually see an overview of the garden.

A map is a fantastic idea. I shall request one at WP:LABMAP. Surtsicna (talk)

More later! —Kusma (talk) 09:38, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"While the perennials, particularly the ornamental grasses, provide continuity, the half-hardy species are used for structure throughout summer months and may be changed every year to trial new color and form combinations." I don't understand what it means that perennials "provide continuity" and that half-hardy species are "used for structure".
"According to Kingsbury" is used twice in this section; generally we seem to listen to Kingsbury a lot.
"the prominent subjects that used to be more popular garden plants" does "prominent subject" mean "featured prominently"?
Affiliated gardens: so HSWT pays for all of these? Is there a lot of staff involved or is the Sichtungsgarten the central object of attention? Are the other gardens open to the public?
mountain laurel is a disambiguation page.
"Richard Hansen's ideas were introduced" this paragraph looks very lonely after the long break with the images.

First read through done, will look at sources next. —Kusma (talk) 14:48, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Source spotchecks

Numbering from Special:PermanentLink/1277241456

1: Link does not work for me. Is this [1]? It is probably called "Sichtungsgarten in any case, and the authors would be Bernd Hertle and Christa Brand. Probably a good source, but not an independent one. Anyway, if this is the source you use, it needs page numbers.
Looking at [2] seems useful. 1a: the attempt did not "fail" but the garden (probably the one on the island in Potsdam I mentioned) did not survive WW2.
1b, c: ok
1d: unable to check from the sample I can see.
1e: kind of
2a/3a: Neither of the sources mentions Hansen as a student of Foerster.
2c: ok
2g: ok
3: I am not sure that everything here is from Kingsbury. The text says "Below Noel Kingsbury discussed the importance of this garden and the trials they host there." and above that we have some of the choice quotes you use, including "Its [sic] a unique institution, with no real equivalent in the English-speaking world" which may be the editor's words, not Kingsbury's.
6a, b: ok. This is another source mentioning that the gardens are pretty cool, "Europaweit gebe es kaum Institutionen mit vergleichbarer Expertise."
7: I get the impression that Duthweiler actually leads all of the gardens? There are some nice bits here about greenhouses not being sustainable and other climate change related decisions, but they seem to mostly affect other gardens, not the Sichtungsgarten.
8b: ok
9: ok
10: ok. Here and above, you could link the newspaper: Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Sources seem ok and are reliable enough at GA level, but more scholarly ones are available. [3] [4] for starters.

General comments and GA criteria

A couple of prose/clarity points, see above.
MoS: mostly fine, but I am not too convinced by Kingsbury in the lead and the lone sentence at the bottom.
Ref layout: could use a few improvements (authors for number 1)
Sources are fine, spotchecks showed no original research except for the 2a/3a issue above.
No copyvio issues detected.
Broadness: a little bit more context on Foerster and the concept of trial gardens in general could help.
Not too much detail. A general question is whether the other gardens should be here or in a separate article on the Weihenstephan gardens in general (some of them seem to have older origins).
The institution seems to be quite widely praised, so I think it is neutral to do so.
Images: copyrights look fine. The upright images should probably use |upright= so they are not larger than others. The Hansen bust caption should mention the artist.
There should probably be fewer images overall, and definitely fewer floating ones. The Weihenstephaner Gold is not mentioned in the text.
I have experimentally changed one of the <gallery> tags to {{gallery}}, which seems (to me) to be superior. At least it works better in various screen sizes. I have self-reverted, but would suggest you play with this a bit.
MOS:ALT text would be good (but the guidance on that page is terrible, see discussion on the talk page).

Done reviewing. The page could do with some more polishing along the lines above, but it should not be a major effort to get to GA status. I'll put on hold just to state that officially. —Kusma (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have made an edit to suggest how to deal with the image size problems. Responses to my suggestions look good so far, hope you can work on the others soon. (I have been busy offwiki but hope to be able to review further changes on the weekend). —Kusma (talk) 21:47, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No worries, I have been busy for the past two weeks too. I am glad you did not write me off yet! I'll resume work on this today. Surtsicna (talk) 08:05, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see you're back! Let's try to wrap this up soon, I am beginning to forget what I was thinking when I reviewed this. —Kusma (talk) 09:15, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV ()

3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant ()

Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed