Wikipedia:Peer review/Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor/archive1

Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because I'd like to work on it and nominate it for Good Article. It is far from the nominating stage at this point, and needs major revisions that I'm willing to make. First, however, I'd like to see what others view as the strong and weak points of the article and what can be done to fix them.

Thanks for your assistance, DCItalk 22:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

• intro: too many 'alsos'
• why was the marriage a defeat?
• 'Francis, just past his 24th birthday, was now Emperor...much sooner than he had expected.'
• 'even speaking to them in their own language' - how many did he know? Not mentioned.
• Overall, needs a lot more context. Besides his family life, did he have any notable hobbies? Did he patronize any noted artists or commission major works or buildings? What do historians make of his realpolitik? He seems like something of a failure against Napoleon but maybe he did as well as could be expected. What were the consequences of his being Emperor of Austra etc? Did his domestic spy system expand or become malignant? And so on. --Gwern (contribs) 16:00 4 February 2012 (GMT)

Brianboulton comments: I agree with the general gist of the above comments; the article seem thin and underprepared.. In addition, here are some more specific criticisms:-

• Disambiguation link on Florin needs fixing
• Unwarranted bolding in lead should be removed, specifically "elected" and "hereditary"
• Uncited statements and material: A great deal of the information in the articles is not cited anywhere. The following are the more obvious instances, but there may be further cases within paragraphs supported by a single citation at the end.
  • "The strain told on Leopold and by the winter of 1791, he became ill. He gradually worsened throughout early 1792; on the afternoon of 1 March Leopold died, at the relatively young age of 44. Francis, just past his 24th birthday, was now Emperor...much sooner than he had expected.
  • Entire third paragraph of "Emperor" section
  • "The federal Diet met at Frankfurt under Austrian presidency (in fact the Habsburg Emperor was represented by an Austrian 'presidential envoy')."
  • "Francis was interred in the traditional resting place of Habsburg monarchs, the Kapuziner Imperial Crypt in Vienna's Neue Markt Square. He is buried in tomb number 57, surrounded by his four wives."
  • Entire final paragraph of "Final years" section
  • "Titles and styles" information
  • Marriages and children information
• Overreliance on a single source (Wheatcroft book). What part if any has the Reifenscheid book played in the preparation of the article? The Wiener Zeitung sourece needs to be marked "in German". But it is unreadable and therefore useless.
• Why give the IBSN information in the short citations, and why is this information different from that given for the book?

Francis is an interesting historical personage, but until the article has received a good deal more attention, I hink further review is fairly pointless. Brianboulton (talk) 22:26, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I am not the primary contributor to the article, but do have an intent to revise the article to make it worthy of GA status. I hope that the peer review can provide guidance telling interested editors what the right way to go on this thing is. Thanks for your comments. DCItalk 22:37, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Lecen comments Hi, DCI. Franz II deserves a great article and I'm glad to see that someone is interested on improving it. My first suggestion is: find books, a lot of books. I have no idea if there are English spoken biographies of him out there but you'll need books if you want to make a good article. If you plan to use itnernet sources or something similar, than you should forget about it. Other suggestions:

• The article needs a physical description as well as character traits. How did he look like? Was he tall? Short? What was the color of his eyes and hair? Was he rude? Gentle? Inteligent? Stupid?
• It also needs to be enlarged, and a lot. I'd recommend taking a look at Pedro II of Brazil, a FA about Franz II's Brazilian grandson. It will be a good model.

That's all for the moment. If you need any help, don't think twice before asking me. Good luck! --Lecen (talk) 03:15, 5 February 2012 (UTC)