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==February 2012==
==February 2012==
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turning Point (2008)/archive4}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Jonathan Agnew/archive2}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cross of Gold speech/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Manhunter (film)/archive3}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/George W. Romney/archive2}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Monteverdi's lost operas/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Monteverdi's lost operas/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John Barbirolli/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John Barbirolli/archive1}}

Revision as of 21:42, 11 February 2012

February 2012

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Raul654 21:42, 11 February 2012 [1].

Turning Point (2008)

Nominator(s): WillC 13:11, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because... its failed 3 nominations due to lack of support. I think it meets the criteria. I'll review for a review. You want me to review an article you got up, I'll do a deep review for a review of this one.--WillC 13:11, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments: I just went through and did some copy editing, feel free to revert any of my changes if you think they made things worse. The prose seemed ok to me (I'm not the best judge though). There were a couple sentences that I thought needed some more help:
  • "This followed later with Styles missing a pele kick on Sting, which allowed him to pin Styles with a small package to retain the championship."
  • "The number the participant was eliminated determined his ranking in getting a future TNA X Division Championship match, in storyline." Mark Arsten (talk) 18:04, 5 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • All comments have been fixed and your copyedit improved the article in my opinion.--WillC 14:56, 6 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape search - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 09:41, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No one wishes to give comments I gather? I'm expecting this to be closed soon. Guess I'll have to renominate it again.--WillC 06:03, 22 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am disinclined to close a FAC for lack of review so many times, so this one can sit here a bit longer until some kind person decides to review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, good. I don't want to have to nominate this a fifth time anyway. Anything I can do to get that review? I don't mind reviewing another article for one or something along those lines.--WillC 22:53, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Media review

—Andrewstalk 00:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All fixed.--WillC 05:17, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
File:Turning Point (2008).jpg still needs a bit of work. See WP:FUR for what should be included. —Andrewstalk 05:33, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well I'm not exactly sure what else to do. It had a different Fair use explanation, but another Media reviewer came through and changed it during the first or second review.--WillC 00:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the poster is the primary visual image for the 2008 Turning Point? Say so. Describe why the non-free content it is needed in the article, and how it significantly enhances readers' understanding. —Andrewstalk 05:44, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I gave it a shot.--WillC 07:51, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Still not quite there (IMO). See File:Wonder World Tour poster.png for an example. —Andrewstalk 09:03, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I looked and took a few lines from its purpose of use if that is alright to help better the understanding of use.--WillC 08:16, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Great. —Andrewstalk 01:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on criterion 3 only. —Andrewstalk 01:45, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please check my edits. The prose is a bit slack in places, have a careful read through to see if there is any redundancy or lack of clarity.
  • I'll look through, not sure if I'll see anything. I've looked it over so many times nothing pops anymore.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • first event under the name to take place in November. It was originally scheduled to take place in December, but TNA moved the event to November in late 2008 for an unknown reason — why is this notable enough for the lead?
  • I'd assume the date being changed somewhere around a month before it took place would be notable enough for the lead. Also considering, Turning Point was an annual December event since 2004. This being the one to break that and set a new consistency with future events.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • a 7 out of 10 — why "a"?
  • Makes it sound a bit better. "rated 7 out of 10" sounds odd compared to "rated a 7 out 10."--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • on-screen co-owner (twice) — I don't understand why he's only co-owner when he's on-screen. Needs clarifying or correcting.
  • Had to do with a storyline that started at the same time that would be pointless to explain in this article. Mick Foley was announced on the October 23 episode of Impact!" that he had bought half the shares of TNA from Jeff Jarrett, becoming part owner. It was pure storyline. I could change it to "storyline co-owner of TNA Mick Foley" or "co-owner of TNA Mick Foley, in storyline,..."--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC) [reply]
  • Hall, however, legitimately no-showed the event citing "food poisoning" as a result, leaving Joe legitimately angered by the excuse — two "legitimately", who decides legitimacy?
  • Removed the first one, its kind of redundant. Its due to reports that come out at the time. It was publicized at how angry Joe was viewing from his actions on the show. Since I have expanded Turning Point (2007) roughly.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jarrett, however, recommended Abyss as Angle's opponent, who was standing behind Angle in the ring and was a casualty of Angle's the previous week — confusing, at one point I thought Angle was standing behind himself!
  • I agree, poorly written by myself. Redone--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Storm spat beer in Sabin's face, which led to Beer Money gaining the pinfall — the cause and effect isn't obvious to me
  • Worked on it a bit, tried to update it. Hopefully its fixed.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alright I will handle these sometime tomorrow.--WillC 01:42, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy with the changes, and the points that you haven't accepted are individual style preferences. FWIW, one way of explaining material without disrupting the text is to use footnotes, as in this current FAC. It's particularly helpful when what might be obvious to an American fan is less clear to a Brit non-aficionado. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 12:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comments they were greatly and I mean greatly appreciated. Made my day when I saw them. Been waiting so long for them and your support. WP:PW is all about explaining out to the uninformed reader. I will definitely take a look into the footnotes idea when I (massively) re-write Sacrifice (2008) for my next FAC nomination.--WillC 12:33, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support - Based on prose only. Presuming prior FAC attempts validated the sources, images etc. --Noleander (talk) 14:28, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Noleander :

  • Overall, the prose is workmanlike. I wouldn't call it scintillating, but on the other hand I'm hard-pressed to identify shortcomings.
    • Worked on it around 2 years ago. Was my best then. Wrote better since. Was hoping the FAC would help improve it. Not had that many reviews.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prose: "The match came down to Lethal and Young, which Young won ... ". Seems like "which" is modifying the noun closest: Young. But I think it is intended to modify "match". Perhaps reword
  • Prose: " The match was announced as following lucha libre tag team rules, where a participant could ...". Use of "where" in that manner is a bit too informal for an encyclopedia. Re-word?
    • Done, switched to "in which".--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Term: "domestic buyrate" - what is that?
    • I do believe it means origin country buyrate. I rarely include buyrates as they are rare to find. I just placed in what the ref said.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Term: "The build to the encounter between .." - "Build up" is more conventional, but maybe "build" without the "up" is wrestling argot?
    • Tried to make it sound more formal or "production based", in order to get away from the wrestling aspect of storylines and make it more about the event. Like the Superbowl being about the event and telecast more than just football idea. How so much is brought into the overall process. Thats why I used "build" as a means of showing the way they promoted the event, than the event promoting the storylines which is how most events are written these days it seems.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Italics? DVD: "... as part of the "TNA Wrestling: Cross The Line Vol. 2" box set, ..." If that is a DVD title, maybe it should be italicized. Not sure about that.
    • Never been brought up before I think I checked Italics not long ago, never saw anything about it.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Spell check - I ran it through a spell checker, and it looks good.
    • I spell check everything after I finish an article to make sure.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Spot checks on sources: I looked at 3 of the sources, and they were consistent with the associated material. Was a more thorough spot check done in one of the prior FACs?
    • Yeah, I do believe 2 have been done.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaning toward support: If the above items (from myself and Jimfbleak) are addressed, I would Support.
    • Alright, your choice on whether you wish or not. I do believe all comments for both have been addressed.--WillC 08:10, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

End Noleander comments. --Noleander (talk) 02:24, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see a spotcheck of this article's sources. Ucucha (talk) 00:39, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spot check of a few random sources (out of 38 total footnotes) by Noleander:

  • FN 4:
Result: Validated
Article: "On the first day of 2008, TNA updated their official website to publicize the official dates for all of their PPV events to take place that year."
Source: [dated 1 Jan 2008] .. contains a list of event dates
  • FN 12:
Result: Validated.
Article: "Sting's and Styles' rivalry soon escalated to a point where storyline co-owner of TNA Mick Foley announced on the October 30 episode of TNA's television program TNA Impact! that the two would fight for the championship at Turning Point"
Source: "Mick Foley entered the Impact Zone and talked about the new remodeling that was done. Foley talks about voting and TNA in HD. He announced two big main events for Turning Point which include, Kevin Nash vs. Samoa Joe and Sting defending the TNA Heavyweight Championship against AJ Styles. "
  • FN 14:
Result: Partially validated. But "history of no-showing" not found in source.
Article: "Hall, however, missed the event citing "food poisoning", leaving Joe legitimately angered by the excuse; Hall has a history of no-showing events."
Source: "As the afternoon progressed and Hall wasn't answering his phone, a lot of concern grew within TNA that he was going to no-show. There was said to be hope as the PPV went live that he would eventually show up. However, Hall sent word that he had food poisoning and couldn't make it."
I expected this to come up. I could probably use a bio to source the extra part or just remove it. I was hoping it would fall under good faith or common sense, but that regarding wrestling. Its common sense in this world. Universal not really. So, its not that important, I might as well remove it. Its about the match, not Hall.--WillC 03:30, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, if there is an article about Hall, it belongs there. --Noleander (talk) 03:33, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, its been removed.--WillC 03:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 19:
Result: Validated.
Article: "Angered by Jarrett's refusal, Angle began assaulting several wrestlers in TNA to persuade Jarrett into accepting the challenge."
Source: "…Kurt Angle entered the Impact Zone and attacked David Penzer. ... Security and referees came out to stop the beating, but also wound up taking shots from Angle. Jeff Jarrett came out and told Angle to let it go. Angle said that he wanted a rematch .... Jarrett went nuts and went after Angle, but security held him back...." [much more detail in source]
  • FN 20:
Result: Validated
Article: "On the October 23 episode of Impact!, Angle challenged Jarrett again to a rematch, which Jarrett again refused."
Source: " Borash asked Jarrett if he will give Kurt Angle the rematch against him that he wants. Jarrett said he doesn't always get all he wants in life, but he'll get over it. He said Angle will get over never getting a rematch. He said he has business to take care of, so he had to leave."
  • FN 23:
Result: source not available.
Article: "The event featured employees other than the wrestlers involved in the matches. There were four overall commentators for the event; Mike Tenay and Don West provided English commentary, while Hector Guerrero and Willie Urbina served as the Spanish announce team."
  • FN 24:
Result: Validated, if "Gore" is a high-angled attack
Article: "… and came to a finish when Rhino pinned Bashir after a high-angled tackle."
Source: "Bashir settled in the ring into a chinlock at 6:00. Rhino came back at 8:00 with a spinebuster. Bashir got upset with the ref and spit at him. Rhino then surprised with him a lousy looking Gore for the win."
  • FN 38:
Result: Validated
Article: "Eric Young got his TNA X Division Championship match on the November 13 episode of Impact! against then-champion Sheik Abdul Bashir."
Source: "Mick says he believes in second chances and then says that Eric Young earned a shot at the X-Division Champion."

End of Noleander source spot check. --Noleander (talk) 03:19, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notes:

  • See MOS#Images; avoid referring to images as being on the left or right.
    • Alright, removed only issue. However, I'm a bit confused how I'm going to be able to convey to a reader who Storm or Roode is in that picture?--WillC 23:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • You can distinguish them by things like "wearing hat", for example. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reliability of some sources was queried at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turning Point (2008)/archive3 and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turning Point (2008)/archive2; have those been resolved? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:35, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do believed that was handled on the first review, NikkiMaria voted Neutral and left it up to future reviewers. Other than that, I believe all other issues have been solved or at least attempted to be solved by me to the full extent.--WillC 23:15, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The last review (archive 3) queried two sources, that appear unresolved at the end of that review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:24, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Same sources that were brought up in the first and second reviews. It appeared it was more of a refresh rather than an issue. She never replied even after contacting that I recall. The first one is owned by Discovery while the second covers minor information such as attendance and match times. That sites gets its information from books, magazines, tapes, etc.--WillC 23:55, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "Turning Point (2008) was a" was it actually called "(2008)"? It doesn't look that way from the poster.
    • No, but its meant to differentiate between the events "Turning Point was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event..." makes it sound like it is the only event in the series.--WillC 01:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe a US thing, but "under the Turning Point chronology " I would have thought it was "in" the chronology rather than "under" it....
  • Since you've just mentioned Canada, isn't it worth clarifying that " Phil Allely of The Sun " is a UK-based thing?
    • Well the first is because that is the name of the company, but for the sake of it, fixed.--WillC 01:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • No need to link rock music.
  • "The promotional poster for the gathering was released some time prior through PPV providers featuring Mick Foley" -> "The promotional poster for the gathering, featuring Mick Foley, was released through PPV providers."
  • You don't need the {{see also}} link to pro wrestling, that's already been linked to and isn't particularly specific to this section.
  • " leaving Joe legitimately angered by the excuse" if he had food poisoning, what made it legitimate to be "angered"?
    • I had a statement which explained this more, but it wasn't in the reference. It was believed by TNA this was an excuse and Joe believed it was as well. I felt the statement made that clear enough as is.--WillC 01:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Joe and Nash's partnership seemed to come to a close after Nash disappeared from TNA television in mid-2008." -> "seemed to"? is that your opinion or is that a direct quote/ref?
    • Moreso, Common sense. He wasn't appearing on tv, so there could be no partnership between the two.--WillC 01:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check images have alt text.
  • " (James Storm and Robert Roode; Pictured) " pictured no need for a capital P.
  • "was .5 above" ordinarily would expect 0.5 but perhaps this is a US thing.
    • Didn't see the point of the 0, there is always an invisible zero somewhere.--WillC 01:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Table fails MOS:DTT, it's inaccessible to screen-readers and no real reason that the font size should be 85%.
    • First I've heard of this, I checked the link. It gave no information on what to change this too and I saw nothing on font size regulations. This is the same table that has been used for 4 years. I'm happy to change it, just don't know what to change it to.--WillC 01:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • For starters, you'll need to add row and col scopes to allow screen readers to announce new rows/cols. The Rambling Man (talk) 11:43, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Alright, did first table, will do second if this is acceptable. In my opinion, it is a bit odd. Its kind of a reverse.--WillC 18:59, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Spot on. It's designed to help screen readers so not sure why you'd think it was "odd" and a "reverse", but looking forward to you fixing up the next table. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:52, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Done, the old one just looked neater.--WillC 21:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I thought MOS said to avoid using # as a replacement for "number"?
    • Never heard of this before. Went and checked it says so, but that is for prose. Went ahead and changed it anyway.--WillC 01:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "X Division rankings match eliminations" table, Eric Young isn't linked first time.
    • Went ahead and linked all names, since tables are exceptions to overlinking.--WillC 01:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man (talk) 20:24, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • We have not yet had reliability of sources cleared on this FAC-- I listed it at WT:FAC days ago as still needing a source check for reliability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:05, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hmm, first time I've heard of this. Its had several source checks in the past. None seem to be outstanding. All issues appear to have been met. I can explain source reliability if needed again. The Sun and Slam Sports should be obvious. Meanwhile, Pro Wrestling Torch is a leader in wrestling news, its pretty much number 2 next to Wrestling Observer/Figure Four. It has been running in several ways since the late 80s. Their information is determined with sources from inside the companies, through the wrestlers, road agents, etc, via interviews, inside tips, etc. WrestleView prints its information by relay from Wrestling Observer, TNA, or PWTorch. The main journalist Adam Martin has interviewed several within the industry and been interviewed by several magazines and radio shows due to his connection with wrestling. They publish stories that are backed up by various people, rather than speculate like other wrestling sites. TNA, Pro Wrestling History, and HowStuffWorks is all that is left. TNA is primary, HowStufWorks is own by Discovery so obvious, and Pro Wrestling History is minor covering attendance and match times which are not detrimentally important to the article. I could probably remove it if needed, but was used in Lockdown (2008) when it was passed.--WillC 16:30, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reliability of sources
  1. There is nothing here to indicate reliability: http://www.prowrestlinghistory.com/about.html Please review WP:V and WP:RS and explain what makes this source reliable, according to policy. — SandyGeorgia 16:51, January 24, 2012 — continues after insertion below
    I'm already in the process of removing it to an extent. Its been a WP:PW thing to use it, I've disliked using it since I can't explain other than what I've been told so I've begun removing it with recent articles I've done such as Slammiversary (2005). I'm replacing the match times. The only thing it will be used for is attendance since the Impact! Zone is fed tourist from Universal Studios they always have the same number that its no longer posted by sites.--WillC 18:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. There is nothing here that speaks to journalistic credentials or editorial oversight: http://www.wrestleview.com/info/staff.shtml Please explain what makes this a reliable source, according to policy.
  3. Here is one of many responses from WP:RSN about howstuffworks.com: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_101#HowStuffWorks.com Please address how that response relates to the text cited from this source in this article, specifically wrt the 1c requirement. Is it not possible to find a higher quality source to cover the text cited from this source? — SandyGeorgia 16:51, January 24, 2012 — continues after insertion below
    How it relates, the source is meant to cover a breif idea of the topic of wrestling rather than covering the event. As said there it's "basically factual" and it "over simplifys things" which is exactly what its meant for, to simply the nature of wrestling. Besides it I only know to cite a book, but I know of no published material which explains wrestling reliably. None have been popular to come to mind which are considered good besides tons of bios. I could use Bret Hart's biography which I have so it would be possible. He explains wrestling in depth and would obviously be a credible source in the subject as he grew up in the world and his father was a promoter who trained wrestlers.--WillC 18:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I suspect there's a good chance that a case can be made that this source is reliable, but the case does need to be made, with respect to Wikipedia policy, not opinion: http://www.pwtorch.com/torchhistorypage.html Please make it.
    I'm going to cover this and WrestleView the best I can here. WP:PW has always had issues at explaining how sources are reliable, we've yet to convince anyone of a purely reliable source I know of besides published sources such as newspapers. As such it makes it difficult to use the self published idea. However, from what I know WrestleView should be considered reliable for the following. It is well established, as it has been around for over 12 years. They have an established staff that has gone through an application process. For a larger explanation see the one given by GaryColemanFan at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/SummerSlam (2007)/archive2. That is pretty much all I know to say. Although, I have more info elsewhere. As I've seen several times other wrestling sites have mentioned Adam Martin, WrestleView, etc. However, they have not been proven so they are useless to mention. Just to make the argument though, referencing them would suggest WrestleView is seen as reliable, trustworthy, etc in the industry. Not sure if arguing that wrestlers have appeared on WrestleView's "radio network" would help justify, as I believe wrestlers would not be associating with an unreliable publication who can't get their facts straight. I've emailed the webmaster for information on their fact checking system and staff if it is anywhere on the website. I did discover a WrestleView history page, but its blank and supposed to be under renovation which has yet to be completed. Apparently it once existed. As for PWTorch, its a newsletter which has been running since 87. Wade Keller and James Caldwell have worked with the Wrestling Observer, ran by Dave Meltzer who has been interviewed and covered by Slam Sports, mentioned by wrestlers such as Bret Hart in his bio, featured in documentaries like Beyond the Mat, etc. If I can think of any other ways to prove the reliability of these sources I will. I'm looking for information on WrestleView.--WillC 18:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a Dispatch that should help in your work: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-26/Dispatches. And here's a page from another Project that shows how to establish a self-published source as reliable: Wikipedia:WikiProject Gilbert and Sullivan/Marc Shepherd's Gilbert and Sullivan Discography. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Alright so I went through the article to see how important WrestleView is through it. Found a few that it could do without so they were removed. Also discovered a good amount of them aren't even by WrestleView themselves, they are repost from Wrestling Observer, PW Torch, and TNA which I believe would make them alright to use. The issue appears to be WrestleView rather than PW Torch. With the explanation given above on why WrestleView is creditable to use as well as now knowing that the information comes directly from known reliable sources, I believe the sourcing issue is solved now.--WillC 07:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: Looking at the HowStuffWorks reference, I see no problem with its use. It's a site that presents things in a "dumbed-down", but not factually incorrect, manner; but here it is simply used to cite a brief aside on the presentation of a professional wrestling event. However, if better sources are required for this, I believe that documentaries such as Beyond the Mat and Catch: The Hold Not Taken offer this same information—however, in a much more protracted manner which would make sourcing content to them slightly more difficult (if time references are required then separate citations would probably have to be made for each clause in the current sentence, as whole scenes in these films discuss one aspect at a time). Using a written work such as the Bret Hart autobiography mentioned above would prove equally problematic, as any of the wrestling autobiographies I've seen mention these things in passing (explaining, say, "works" and "shoots" in one place, "heels" somewhere else, and so on), requiring a simple sentence-long overview to be culled from a large range of individual pages. Perhaps a secondary citation to one of these features, without any specified time references, would serve to reaffirm the accuracy of the initial HowStuffWorks citation, without the need to rely on the larger work for specifics? I'm leaning towards supporting this one if this is clarified—I can dig up the information mentioned but as I no longer own a copy of Beyond the Mat, I'd be unable to provide any specific times, should they be required, and to be frank, I'm not keen on rereading a full novel-length biography to find citations for a single sentence. In all honesty I don't feel that the use of HowStuffWorks is unreliable given the content and context of the citation, however, and should probably stand on its own without any problems. I took far too long to say that, didn't I. GRAPPLE X 06:47, 11 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Raul654 21:42, 11 February 2012 [2].

Jonathan Agnew

Nominator(s): Dweller (talk) & The Rambling Man (talk) 13:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Posting this for a second run. Although Dweller and I thought we'd copyedited it sufficiently before its previous nom, it became quickly apparent that that was not the case! Many comments later, the nom was closed due to lack of support. I believe we have covered all the main issues brought up in the previous nom and look forward to receiving further comments and suggestions this time round. Thanks, in advance, to all contributors for time and energy expended here. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:03, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: This is looking really good now and a lot of work seems to have gone into it. Very comprehensive and representative of the available sources. It is almost there; some questions and comments and then I will be happy to support. Sorry if any of these seem fussy or nit-picky, and feel free to disagree. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:20, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Moved comments to Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Jonathan Agnew/archive2 to reduce clutter on the page. Please revert if there is a problem with this. All my comments were either addressed or not something that required action and none affected my support below. --Sarastro1 (talk) 13:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, inclined to support: I've struck the comments which have been directly addressed. Most of the others are personal preference and I have no problem with them as such., but I have not struck them in case others want to chip in. The only remaining issues I have are with the Tyson ref and use of WP:INTEXT, while I've replied with further points to a few of the other things. I would like reassurance on the dirt-in-pocket and judgements on his effectiveness as a broadcaster, but I do not necessarily insist on action being taken before supporting. --Sarastro1 (talk) 20:06, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have attempted to cover most of the existing concerns, only one I can't directly solve with Dweller's input is the Tyson ref... The Rambling Man (talk) 08:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Thanks for your patience, all my concerns have now been dealt with. Anything unstruck does not affect my support, it merely suggests that our views diverge slightly! I do not expect anything further to be done regarding these. Great work. --Sarastro1 (talk) 18:17, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 05:49, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • "in Macclesfield, Cheshire and" missing comma, please check throughout.
    • Oxford comma? Not commonplace in British English so not needed in this dominantly British English article. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I wasn't talking about the serial comma, since this isn't a list. A punctuation should go after Cheshire as the word is there to clarify which Macclesfield the article is talking about. Nevertheless, have I missed something? --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 23:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why is the "Background and early years" coming under "Playing career"? Presumably the notes about his parents, siblings and grandparent has nothing to do with playing career; thus, I would personally split the former off.
    • Dweller, you can deal with this preference comment. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's a judgement call and it could go either way. However, there's not an awful lot in the background section that isn't about cricket. It just seemed neater this way. Also, this way, the overall structure is playing career, media career, private life, which is good and tight. --Dweller (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Agnew was born on 4 April 1960 at West Park Hospital in Macclesfield, Cheshire; his parents are Philip and Margaret Agnew." --> "Agnew was born on 4 April 1960 at West Park Hospital in Macclesfield, Cheshire, to Philip and Margaret Agnew."
  • Why isn't "West Park Hospital" wikified?
  • "18 year old" hyphens missing
  • Alt text missing
  • Caption for infobox photo?
  • Can the panoramic photo underneath "Broadcasting controversies" be enlarged?
    • I thought MOS said not to force images to specific sizes beyond the one in the lead? The Rambling Man (talk) 08:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "stint as chief cricket cricket writer"
  • FN 35 and 36 need to be filled in.

Thanks for the comments! The Rambling Man (talk) 08:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments have been addressed, except for the small comma issue. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 23:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Don't mix {{citation}} with the {{cite}} family
  • FN 61 is missing quite a bit of info - this is a book source and should be cited as such
    • Cited as much as I can find on the internet link, doesn't appear to have a page number. Dweller? The Rambling Man (talk) 13:36, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Book does not include page numbers. --Dweller (talk) 15:02, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You are not required to include retrieval dates for Google Books links, but you should be consistent in whether or not you do so
  • Don't cite to bare URLs
  • FN 92: page(s)?
  • FN 101: don't italicize edition, other books don't include location or abbreviate range. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:20, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed
    • Thanks, TRM will enjoy that lot. --Dweller (talk) 13:25, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Dweller, you need to look at ref 88 (the bare one Nikkimaria has found), and do something about it dude. Nikkimaria, thanks for your review! The Rambling Man (talk) 13:36, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – Just a few quick ones from me, since what I saw at the first FAC was taken care of...

  • County cricket: Minor style point, but the dash in the block quote is an improper spaced em dash.
  • Later playing career and retirement: Every sentence here starts with Agnew. A little more variety than this is in order for an FA.
    • Well, not every sentence, but every paragraph. Couple of switches made. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Playing style and career summary: Comma could stand to be removed from "Cricket commentator, Colin Bateman opined".
  • The references to The Times newspapers are given in the form p. p#. Is the second p what the sport section is titled? If not, some extra ps may have crept in there. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Probably my fault when converting the {{citation}} templates to {{cite}} templates per Nikkimaria's concerns. Hopefully fixed now. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Provisional support – The article is greatly improved from when it was first at FAC. Since spot-checks and an image review are still needed, I'll be conservative in my support until these reviews take place. This can be considered a full support when they are done. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:05, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – Some comments, I have only reviewed an article once before so apologies if I in some way break the rules, or if I am being too pedantic.

  • in lede - "Agnew had a successful first-class career as a fast bowler for Leicestershire from 1979 to 1990, returning briefly in 1992." Agnew's brief return was in a limited overs match, not a first-class game. In any event the return is probably not important enough to deserve a mention here.
    • Agreed on the confusion between first-class and one-day. But I do think it would be misleading for the lead to say he finished in 1990 when he had that cameo in 1992. I'll ponder it. --Dweller (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Agnew's most successful seasons came toward the end of his career, after his last international match, when he had learned to swing the ball" reads as if he learnt about swinging the ball in his last international match.
  • "Following the end of his playing career" seems a clumsy phrase. Perhaps "since his playing career concluded"... or is the phrase necessary at all?
    • I'm not sure what the problem is here. --Dweller (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's clumsy phrasing because nothing follows an end. The word "since" is better. Dean B (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Surprised that nothing "follows an end", but I think I've rephrased it so we can all get on nicely and have a jolly weekend. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:41, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Michael Henderson, one of Agnew's peers and rivals". Henderson is an opinion columnist in the newspapers - I don't think he can really be described as a rival of Agnew. They don't do the same sort of job.
  • Is it common to record the listing of his parents' marriage in a newspaper? It seems irrelevant detail to me.
    • It's cited background info, there seems little harm in its inclusion. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "From the age of 16 he developed his skills as a right-arm fast bowler out of school hours at Alf Gover's cricket school at Surrey." The words "out of school hours" seem unnecessary.
    • They're needed, otherwise it appears that he attended a cricket school as a school, rather than as an extracurricular activity --Dweller (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • But you've already mentioned he went to a school, a few words before. Dean B (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "in time for the 1978 season" the words "in time" are superfluous.
    • Have adjusted. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • The words weren't superfluous - without them, it implies he was given a one season deal. --Dweller (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Dweller, I'm not sure about that, in my mind it could be argued that "in time for the 1978 season" implies a single season too... Horses for courses? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Agnew found himself bowling to..." the phrase "found himself" is too flowery, why not "Agnew bowled to" or "Agnew played against"? Good writing is straightforward.
    • Actually, I think we're trying to write engaging prose, and this is an attempt to demonstrate that it was something of a shock for a young player to face such a veteran professional in his debut. You could just say "bowled to" but it would lose all sense of prominence. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think the phrase "found itself" is an ugly one. It suggests it was some sort of surprise to Agnew that he found himself playing or found Lloyd in the opposition, neither of which would have been at all surprising to him. The surprise element was that vhe bowled so well as is made clear in the words that follow. I don't find it engaging, but obviously it is not a major issue. Dean B (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he had taken just six first-class wickets" - shouldn't the "just" be "only"?
    • Why? --Dweller (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well I normally use "only" when I am wanting to emphasise the small number that follows, and "just" when you are making a broader statement that is more shutting down other alternatives. For example, Dean B is just a newcomer to FAC but of the two us, Dweller is the only one who is an administrator. Again, not a big issue, but as I'm what you would call a copy editor by trade, these points are of interest to me. Dean B (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The award afforded him the opportunity" - again this seems too flowery. "As the prize, he spent..." is more straightforward.
    • FACs are expected to be written well, not in simple English. I don't see a problem with the phrase. --Dweller (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I guess we'll have to courteously disagree over whether "afforded the opportunity" really is good writing. No-one uses that sort of phrase when speaking and it really adds nothing. Dean B (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think postulating that "no-one uses that sort of phrase when speaking" is a little hyperbolic, it's a turn of phrase that seems (to me, at least) to be acceptable in general prose. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Agnew's career did not initially live up to his early promise" "- I think "Initially, Agnew's career did not live up to its early promise" would be more grammatical.
  • Under the test cricket section there is a wikified reference to the term "blackwash". The link doesn't really describe the origin of the term which is a reference to the colour of the West Indian players. I suspect it isn't a phrase that would be used today, but in any event I don't think it's necessary here, it has no relevance to Agnew's story. "to avoid losing all five tests in the series" would be more meaningful for the reader.
    • Referenced "blackwash" with regard to this series. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • But the reference doesn't explain what a blackwash is. I think it is confusing for the reader who doesn't understand this jargon and you really need to know a lot about cricket to know what this means. I also feel uncomfortable with the racial overtones. Dean B (talk) 17:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, the reference corroborates that it was "known as" the "blackwash" and the wikilink to the specific game in the series gives it context. It's not our job to censor Wikipedia, so while I'm sure we're all uncomfortable with the tone, it is an important phrase and an important part of cricket history here. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He was immediately dropped again from the side..." I think "subsequently" would be better than "immediately".
  • Under "playing style and career summary" the paragraph about his batting seems to be overly generous about his batting ability. I have no problem with mentioning his highest score, but surely it should be in the context that Agnew spent most of his career at 10 or 11 in the batting order. At least his FC average - 11 - should be recorded here.
    • Agreed, we should mention his average - which is far better than the rabbit reputation he's developed on TMS would suggest. I don't really have a good source for him being a 10/11. --Dweller (talk) 22:32, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "His first duty was to cover England's 1990–91 Ashes tour" - this is incorrect, he covered that tour for the Today newspaper, not for the BBC. As noted earlier in the paragraph, he joined the BBC in 1991, not 1990.
    • I think he was commentating on the radio, too, but not part of TMS as in those days TMS didn't cover those tours. I'll check. --Dweller (talk) 22:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In 2007, Martin-Jenkins cited Agnew as the sports journalist he most respects". If you look at the reference Martin-Jenkins says he respects all his fellow cricket correspondents, and Agnew. He doesn't name Agnew as the single journalist he most respects.
  • Under "private life and personality", "when they worked together on BBC radio Leicestershire", I think Radio should have a capital R.

Again, apologies if this is all too pedantic, but I was reluctant to edit the page myself directly, given its nomination here and my relative inexperience. Dean B (talk) 21:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments are excellent, and helpful and I agree with many of them. Thank you. Please do check back in when we've finished going through them. --Dweller (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Good writing is, indeed, straightforward. Thanks for your comments. You are, as always (and with any article), welcome to engage in editing. Indeed, new eyes on an article are very welcome as it becomes something of a chore to repeatedly review the same prose so anything you'd like to do to the article (obviously, beyond a radical overhaul!) would be welcome. Hopefully between me and Dweller, we can address your immediate concerns. Again, cheers for your interest and detailed review comments. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:06, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dean, all of your comments should now be addressed. Thank you for your time, contribution and homework! --Dweller (talk) 16:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support: Congrats on the article. Dean B (talk) 23:41, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. My main objection from the previous FAC remains: inappropriate inclusion of the "leg over" incident in the lead section. I also had several other points during the previous FAC. While all my points have been "responded to", I have a few ongoing disagreements with The Rambling Man. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:55, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Okay, thanks. I don't see anything "ongoing" there, just matters of taste that we presumably will just disagree on. Also, it should be noted that Dweller asked in your link "I think all of Axl's comments have been responded to. If I've missed one, please let me know. --Dweller (talk) 11:47, 20 December 2011 (UTC)" to which you didn't respond. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with the following comments:

  • I, too, have expressed criticism concerning the "leg-over" incident in the lead. I still have reservations about this, but not to the extent of opposing on these grounds. TRM and Dweller are experienced and responsible editors, and if their judgement is at odds with mine, well, that sometimes happens.
  • I have a further reservation about the use of File:Vivian richards crop.jpg. In my resolution, Richards's features are barely discernible; it could be a picture of anyone. With further editing of the image for brightness and contrast it should be possible to get a version in which Richards becomes recognisable; have you tried this? At present, I doubt that the image is worth keeping.
    • Brian, I've replaced it with a much more contrasty image, so perhaps that will assuage you concern over this image? The Rambling Man (talk) 22:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • For some reason this article attracts more than its fair share of attention from minor copyeditors. Most of these suggestions are useful but many are very minor, and much of these long tracts of comment should I think be transferred to the article's talkpage rather than lengthening this FAC page indefinitely.
    • Agreed, of course we welcome all comments but FAC's refusal to use templates which allow compression of text mean that this has already reached extreme TL;DR length in a week. More than happy to take comments on this FAC's talk page or the article talk page or, indeed, on my or Dweller's user talk page. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:28, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agnew is rather more interesting as a man than he was as a cricketer. Brianboulton (talk) 16:54, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Completely true. And what's more, once we've got this featured, we'll let him know and see what he has to say about it on TMS, he has mentioned his Wikipedia article a few times in the past, so it'll be interesting! The Rambling Man (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for now This is a very good article, but goes off the rails towards the end I'm afraid. — Nick-D 07:17, January 29, 2012 — continues after insertion below
    • The coverage of Agnew's personal life and playing and broadcasting career is excellent, and I have only the following minor comments on it:
      • "The award afforded him the opportunity to spend a winter in Australia" - was this the northern or southern winter?
        • Well, it has to be a northern hemisphere winter or it wouldn't make sense (why fly to Australia to play cricket in their winter?), but I can't source it, perhaps Dweller can! The Rambling Man (talk) 15:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I think that the Australian cricket academies go into top gear during the southern winter, and the weather is nice for cricket in the northern half of the country. Nick-D (talk) 10:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • My point really was that he wouldn't have left a northern hemisphere summer of cricket... (but have nothing other than instinct to claim for that!) The Rambling Man (talk) 19:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • "After ending his playing career at a relatively young age of 30, after the 1990 season" - this has already been said
      • It should be noted that Agnew is also part of the commentary panel on the Australian ABC radio's Grandstand program when England tours Australia
        • The first source from ABC I've found seems to imply it's the other way around, that ABC piggyback TMS with an ABC presenter joining the main panel of commentators. Do you have anything sourcing it differently? The Rambling Man (talk) 15:02, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • About 15 years of listening to the ABC radio commentary of English tours of Australia? ;) He's always the only Englishman on the ABC panel during their tours (the ABC normally has a commentator from the visiting country as part of their commentary panel during the Australian summer). He's identified as being part of the ABC commentary panel for the 2010 Ashes series here and is identified as 'Grandstand's Jonathan Agnew' here and here. Nick-D (talk) 10:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • They seem to have a reciprocal arrangement, judging by TRM's source, which of course refers to an English Ashes series, rather than down-under. I'll add. --Dweller (talk) 16:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Do we know roughly when Agnew's two marriages took place? (eg, which years?)
        • There's nothing easy online, I've asked one of our Times correspondents if he can help! The Rambling Man (talk) 15:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • First marriage to Beverley, 8 October 1983. Children, Jennifer 31 October 1985; Rebecca 18 September 1988. Source: The Cricketers' Who's Who, 1991 edition, editor Iain Sproat, Collins Willow, ISBN 0 00 218396 X. Johnlp (talk) 15:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • "It's ****ing [sic] red hot on the field, and when you come off it's ****ing red hot in the dressing-room," Agnew screamed. "Then, what do you get for lunch, ****ing red hot curry?"" - we can use the word 'fuck' in direct quotes, so the stars seem unnecessary.
        • We haven't censored it, the source has censored it so I'd be loathe to second-guess what should replace the ****'s. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:04, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • However, the last 'Broadcasting controversies' and '"Leg over" incident' sections really need a lot of work.
      • For starters, the concept of 'controversy' sections is generally frowned upon. The material they contain should be integrated into other sections.
        • Frowned on by whom? If it's MOS, I've missed it. There have been a number of FACs with controversy sections in them, from memory. The material could be moved elsewhere, but I'm loathe to do so - it adds colour to a biography and helps prevent accusations of hagiography - a common FAC accusation. --Dweller (talk) 19:51, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • While it's an essay, Wikipedia:Criticism is widely accepted and seems to be common sense. You can easily integrate this material into the article without labeling the incidents 'controversies' (particularly as none of the incidents are particularly controversial). Nick-D (talk) 07:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • OK, I've given this a lot of thought, and I'm genuinely unsure what to do. You're right, some of these are not really controversies and that's what's made me rethink. However, I do like them sitting separate from the the history of his progression as a journalist, because it helps the reader find what he's looking for - and that includes the leg-over which is so very well-known far beyond cricket circles. I'm thinking of retitling the subsection "Notable broadcasting incidents", as by definition, they're all incident and notable. And that's about as NPOV as I can get it. Sadly, it's also rather bland. Any views before I make the change? --Dweller (talk) 16:45, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
              • That seems sensible to me. Nick-D (talk) 07:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • How is Agnew's comments about all the British cricket media being banned from Zimbabwe a 'controversy'?
      • Likewise, what was 'controversial' about Agnew's interview with Michael Vaughan or comments about Michael Atherton? These kind of incidents seem perfectly normal for professional sports broadcaster, as they invariably interview people who make fools of themselves and are encouraged to state their opinion on various matters
        • The Vaughan interview was included at the request of an FAC reviewer, last time. The Atherton comments are not included as a controversy, but for context. --Dweller (talk) 19:48, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'm not suggesting that these incidents not be included. My concern is that they're in a section labeled 'Broadcasting controversies' when there's nothing particularly controversial about them. Nick-D (talk) 07:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Does the 'Leg over incident' really need three paragraphs? It could be cut down to a single paragraph (eg, he said it, it was funny, and it was voted the most popular of nine options in one phone-in or internet poll).
      • What's the purpose of the paragraph detailing several other double entendres? Part of Agnew's charm as a commentator is that he's often very funny, and I don't see why these incidents should be highlighted. It would be much better to have a paragraph discussing how Agnew uses humour to lighten up his commentary as it's an important part of his success as a broadcaster. Nick-D (talk) 07:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note I'm aware there are some outstanding issues raised by Nick-D. I plan to get to them tomorrow or Tuesday. RL has been very busy of late. Nick, apologies it's taking so long. It's partly because your points are good ones, lol. --Dweller (talk) 15:44, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nick, I've completed my review of your comment by greatly reducing the length of the leg-over section, including downgrading the other innuendo comments to mere references of Agnew's occasional love of innuendo and cutting back on some of the extra detail about the match and the commuters. I hope that meets you at least half way. --Dweller (talk) 10:53, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've replied above; incidents which weren't at all controversial are still labeled as being 'controversies'. Changing the name of this section as you suggested earlier would fix this. Nick-D (talk) 07:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support All my comments have now been sufficiently addressed - great work with this article. Thanks also for responding to my comments in such a positive manner. Nick-D (talk) 10:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments - Just quick checks on references

  • Ref 73, 74, 97, 98 needs publisher (British Broadcasting Corporation).
  • Ref 80 needs (subscription required) template as The Times have gone paywall. – Lemonade51 (talk) 20:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A very nice article and interesting subject. – Lemonade51 (talk) 21:14, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Images appear unproblematic, captions are fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:37, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are still some problems with prose; for example, in "Agnew has been known to laugh at or include occasional sexual innuendo, while on-air. The most notable of these occurred in August 1991, when Agnew was commentating with Brian Johnston", it's not clear what "these" referred to, and "laugh at or include" sounds distinctly awkward. Ucucha (talk) 03:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, that does sound pretty nasty. We'll get onto a rephrase for that. Is that the only problem or do you see other major prose problems? Cheers, The Rambling Man (talk) 08:59, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's slipped the proofreading net because I just caused it a day or two ago, fixing the last of the issues raised here. Whoops. --Dweller (talk) 09:14, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I found a few other things that I fixed myself, enough that I'm not quite convinced that the prose is up to the standards. I haven't had time to read the entire article, though, and won't until Monday at least. Ucucha (talk) 14:13, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That missing comma and mistaken en-dash? I've run a script over for remaining en-dashes (there weren't any, and I directly blame Dweller for adding the one you found!) so hopefully no further problems. Look forward to your additional comments as-and-when. P.S. any chance you could do a source spot check? I asked Sandy if she could or if she could recommend someone but no luck there. Cheers, The Rambling Man (talk) 15:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Raul654 21:42, 11 February 2012 [3].

Cross of Gold speech

Nominator(s): Wehwalt (talk) 18:07, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because... it meets the criteria in my view. The Cross of Gold speech is William Jennings Bryan's effort a the Democratic convention in 1896, which may have won him the nomination at the cost of the election. Though I think McKinley would have won regardless. While it is not a requirement to so state, I have reviewed the following articles which are at or have been at FAC, since my last nomination: John Tyler, Martha Layne Collins, Halo (Beyoncé Knowles song). Possibly others, I have not in the past kept track. Wehwalt (talk) 18:07, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support: I think that this article is important enough and extremely well cited without a single citation needed tag that I can find. It is well written and appropriately illustrated as well. Zibart (talk) 16:57, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for reviewing the article, and for your support.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:02, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Compelling stuff; the account of the Democratic Convention leading up to the speech, and the record of the speech itself, are particularly arresting. Naturally I have a few prose quibbles and minor queries:-

  • At least one too many commas in "The gold standard, which the United States had effectively been on since 1873, limited the money supply, but eased trade with other nations, such as the United Kingdom, whose currency was also based on gold." Also "been on" jars - I'd make that "embraced". My version: "The gold standard, which the United States had effectively embraced in 1873, limited the money supply while easing trade with nations such as the United Kingdom, whose currency was also based on gold."
  • California Gold Rush: I know there's a link, but the year should be given
  • Presumably the Coinage Act of 1873 preceded the Panic of 1873, but by how much?
  • Oxymoron watch: "a riveting three-hour address". Is the adjective yours, or was it described as such by someone who sat through it?
Kazin says (page 39) "It was a riveting performance". I assume he was not there, but the description convinces me it was justified.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:05, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "which was until 1913 not elected by the people, but instead by state legislatures". Slightly clumsy: "which until 1913 was elected by the state legislatures rather than the popular vote" would in my view be clearer.
  • When you say he "came up" with the phrase in 1894, do you mean he used it? It would be interesting to know exactly when and where.
  • Bryan lacked a seat at the start of the convention - but suddenly we have: "Bryan, once seated, was Nebraska's representative..." etc. How did he get to be seated?
It is mentioned in the quote from Barnes near the start of the "Silver advocates" section. The Credential Committees made two key rulings, they seated the pro-silver Nebraska and Michigan delegations, and their report was adopted by the convention. I felt that the Barnes quote adequately got us by something which would slow down the story to detail.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:52, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "an incendiary address" - yours, or source's?
    The word is mine, but it is justified. Williams says, "Worse, he quickly lost the audience with an agitated speech which combined an appeal to sectionalism with rabid abuse of Grover Cleveland."--Wehwalt (talk) 21:56, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The dissidents nominated their own ticket; the split in the vote would contribute to Bryan's defeat". The second part of this statement is questionable; the dissidents' candidate, John Palmer of Illinois, garnered only 0.95% of the vote. McKinley's margin over Bryan was over 4%. Thus it might be worth modifying the "would contribute" statement.

All in all, an article of the best quality. Brianboulton (talk) 21:44, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the review and the support. I need to doublecheck sources on a couple of those. I will say that Palmer/Buckner, while negligible on a national level, cost Bryan dearly in Kentucky.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:52, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I will address the remaining comments tomorrow.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:52, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All those things are done now, or else commented on. I'm content with the language on Palmer, he did hurt Bryan badly in the border states (Kentucky, where Buckner was from, and West Virginia, especially). I just say "contributing to" because the sources don't think the split was crucial, but it hurt him, along with many other things, the money advantage of the Republicans, the failure of the Democrats and Populists to fully fuse behind Bryan, and Bryan's failure to appeal to the urban vote. And other things.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:40, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support - All of my concerns were addressed at the Peer Review. Excellent article on an interesting (and important) bit of American history. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the support and for the many comments at peer review, which led to a considerable improvement in the article.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:28, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and images but no spotchecks. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:17, 23 January 2012 (UTC) Added image also unproblematic. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • File:Cross_of_gold_speech_cartoon.jpg: source link returns 404 error, missing a US PD tag
  • Check for minor inconsistencies like doubled periods
  • Be consistent in whether journal entries in Bibliography include complete page range or not. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:17, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your thoroughness; I will deal with these tonight.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:23, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Those things are done now.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:46, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Raul654 21:42, 11 February 2012 [4].

Manhunter (film)

Nominator(s): GRAPPLE X 21:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because, after two peer reviews, two GOCE cop-edits and two previous FACs, I believe it ticks all the criteria. A neo-noir box office flop which seem directly responsible for the increasing popularity of both forensic science and criminal profiling in pop culture. The last FAC failed due to there still being possible sources which hadn't been vetted for use, these have now been reviewed (and rejected as redundant to the material already present). Images have been used sparingly but I'm open to adding more free images if this is seen as a detriment. GRAPPLE X 21:38, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Ha! First one on an FAC for once! I've just made a few grammatical edits to the article, but otherwise I have no objections. It's very well-written and informative. Interchangeable|talk to me 00:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape search - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 09:43, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - with regard to FA criterion 1a. There is a little redundancy, e.g. "in order to", where just "to" will suffice, and I would prefer to see "a ride" expanded a little – it's a little too colloquial for my tastes. I have watched this film many times, thank you for an engaging contribution. Graham Colm (talk) 10:09, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done. Reducing "in order to" to "to" can come across as very terse and can make a sentence harder to read. I think this is why "in order to" is so common even in formal writing. However, I have reduced both instances. I'm not sure whether "a ride" is colloquial or simply AmE, but I've changed it to "a lift". Wikt doesn't mark either as colloquial or regional, but I hope this is OK. --Stfg (talk) 11:02, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've just heard "lift" used in an American film (Bugsy Malone) so I suppose it's not just BrE. Good. --Stfg (talk) 10:36, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done, no comment on source comprehensiveness. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:40, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • FN 4 and similar should use endash, not hyphen
  • Be consistent in how editors are notated
  • FN 7 and similar need not repeat publisher
  • Compare formatting on FNs 14 and 15
  • FN 17: punctuation
  • Be consistent in whether directors are listed first or last name first
  • FN 29: check title vs publisher
  • FN 30: publisher?
  • What makes this a high-quality reliable source?
  • Check italicization
  • What is SIU?
  • FN 45: page?
  • Be consistent in whether web sources are cited using website name or base URL, and if the latter whether these are italicized. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:40, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for combing over this. I removed the Ain't It Cool News ref and the associated text, having found that the author has had his journalistic integrity questioned in the past. I think I've addressed the other concerns, but I've quite possibly missed a few. I'm not sure, though, where I've inconsistently listed editors or directors, could you be specific with where this is? Editors are all listed using the relevant fields in the citation templates, which always spits out "Surname, Forename. ed."; and I believe anyone credited as a director in has been listed "Forename Surname (director)". Then again, it's three AM and I might have missed something GRAPPLE X 02:52, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • FN 7 for editor, 78 for director (and 64 is strange too, and 21 vs 45, possible others). Still several hyphen/dash issues, repeating and sometimes contradictory publishers (ex. FN 49), 14 and 15 are still inconsistent, 29 still misses the actual title of the cited page (though now includes work), still italicization problems (ex FN 14). That being said, sleep is probably more vital than addressing formatting issues. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Will give it another look through tomorrow, but have grabbed everything you've mentioned specifically for now - except FN 14 (I removed italics from it earlier, if that's what you're referring to, unless you feel they should be restored? The A.V. Club is a web-only source, not sure that's meant to be italicised); and 29 (I have the title down as "The Reds Official Web Site", its title in my browser is "THE REDS OFFICIAL WEB SITE", though I believe the convention is to replace all-caps with title casing. Does the name display differently for you, or is it the casing thing just?). Going to bed for now but I'll check for further instances of what you've noted tomorrow evening. GRAPPLE X 03:34, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • Our article does italicize AV Club, but I'll leave that to your discretion - what I was looking at there was the date formatting, and the inconsistent italicization which has been addressed. For 29, that's the name of the site, but not the specific page on the site that you're citing (you're right about the casing). Nikkimaria (talk) 04:34, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Although I'm not sure what the page title is meant to be (I'm only seeing the "The Reds Official Web Site" bit and nothing more), I've changed the title to the title of the interview given in the text, rather than on the browser tab. If that's not what you meant then it can be reverted. GRAPPLE X 23:59, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Good work, even if light on images (I'm used to see these movie articles trying to become more illustrated through every free image possible). igordebraga ≠ 04:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Raul654 21:42, 11 February 2012 [5].

George W. Romney

Nominator(s): Wasted Time R (talk) 16:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, not the man currently running for U.S. president, but his father. George Romney was in turn a displaced person, a college dropout, a finder of an accidental career, a wartime industrial leader, a famous corporate CEO, a family man and a local civic and religious leader, a successful governor, a front-running but then dreadful presidential candidate, a quixotic cabinet secretary, and more. Article is GA, was at FAC two years ago but failed due to lack of feedback. It's been largely stable since then in terms of content, and hopefully this time around will earn sufficient support. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:15, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Brief initial comments: Fascinating stuff, and very timely. I may or may not have time to read through the entire article, so just a few comments to speed along the process:

  • Consistency needed in "Bibliography": some sources do not include publication city, and Mollenhoff does not list publisher.
  • All images except this one checks out:
    • File:NixonAndRomneyInOffice.jpg: Source says "As stated in the book, this is an official White House photograph from the National Archives II, College Park, Maryland." What book? Also, what does this mean: . {{{title}}}.
  • This is very minor, but on my screen the image of the gravesite pushes the "Notes" off kilter. No big deal, but it grates on my anal-retentive sensibilities.

Good luck! María (yllosubmarine) 18:52, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your comments. I have added locations to all the Bibliography entries. I have updated the Commons definition of that image with the full book source and fixed the formatting (I think it got messed up when it was auto-transferred to Commons from WP). And I have added a 'clear' template to make sure the Notes section starts correctly. Wasted Time R (talk) 22:14, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Update: All images check out. Thanks for clarifying the source! María (yllosubmarine) 03:35, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Be consistent in whether locations are included for books
Done; all book cites now have locations.
  • Why is FN 181 linked and not FN 190?
Because the first footnote is to a free chapter on the publisher's website, and the second isn't. Is it preferable to remove the link anyway?
  • No citations to Angel, Plas, either Romney text
Yes, I deliberately included these full-length works about or by Romney for completeness. Is there a guideline against this?
Are they being used as references in the creation of the article, or simply to provide further information to the reader? If the latter, the creation of a "Further reading" section would be preferable, as it's generally frowned upon to include cited and uncited works in the same section. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've created a "Writings" section for the two by Romney and a "Further reading" section for the other two. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • What are the qualifications of the author of this source?
I know a couple of years ago, Wargs.com was not allowed as a source in FAC articles, only NEHGS. Is that still true? (Another editor put this in, I'm willing to take it out.)
Unless the author has some particular qualifications on this topic, my inclination would be to remove the source. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at other review comments such as Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Line of succession to the British Throne/archive2 and Wikipedia:Peer review/John McCain/archive1 and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 91, Wargs.com is considered a self-published site and is not usable as a source at the highest levels of review. I've therefore removed it and the statement it was supporting. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 7 and similar: page(s)?
This work is more a pamphlet than a book and I didn't think page numbers were necessary – it's shorter than some of the news articles that are cited.
Generally if a work is more than about 3-4 pages, page numbers are preferred. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've added the page number range used to that cite (now FN 6). Wasted Time R (talk) 14:12, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent in whether you provide retrieval dates for newspapers/magazines
Done; no regular dated news or magazine articles now have visible retrieval dates, only undated websites.
  • FN 81, 145, 199: page?
Done; for 145, page numbers added, for the others, 'fee required' url added.
  • Be consistent in how multi-author works are notated
Done; the short-form book cites now use the same semi-colon-separated form the news cites do.
  • What makes this a high-quality reliable source?
Done; replaced with better source (website of the State of Michigan Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs).
  • FN 206: URL?
Done, with 'fee required' added.
  • Check for minor inconsistencies like doubled periods
Done.
  • Be consistent in whether ISBNs are hyphenated or not
Done; all are now hyphenated.
  • Be consistent in how editions and editors are notated. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:05, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done; editors now have "(ed.)" or "(eds.)" after the end of the name, while editions now have written out numbers such as "(Second ed.)" From the context I'm sure it's clear to the reader which is which.
Thank you very much for your detailed look, changes and responses are underway. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:14, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have finished my initial changes for this, and will change more depending upon a few of your responses here. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, looks good now, thanks. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:18, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is inconsistency/issues in the way some of the ref templates are being used. The issues I currently see are: (1) most references are using the "first"/"last" parameters, but some are using "author" instead; (2) there are instances where the "first"/"last" parameters are being used for editors, when the "editor-first"/"editor-last" parameters should be used for proper formatting; (3) the placement of "Jr." in people names in some references is not correct; (4) a link to http://web.archive.org/web/20070918090328/http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,680195540,00.html is being use when it should not be, since the article is available directly from the original source at http://www.deseretnews.com/article/680195540/Mitt-Romney-the-beginning.html ; (5) there is a "page" parameter in use that is including both a page number and a URL, instead of putting the url in it's own parameter; (6) using the parameter "work" to a magazine improperly formats it, where "journal" correctly italicizes it (however since the ref done this way is actually a collection of covers, and not the magazine itself, a better formatting of that ref moght be{{cite news | url=http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19590406,00.html | contribution=George Romney – Apr. 6, 1959 | work=TIME Magazine Covers | journal=Time}} . Additionally, while not related to references: (1) there is a sentence with a simple list of three items that uses the word "and" twice, instead of using a comma in place of the first "and"; (2) the categories should be alphabetized. I have attempted to fix most of these issues (and was in the process of fixing the rest), but have been reverted, and that I needed to being the issue here. Being a wikignome, I would normally be happy to fix all of these minor issues, but I have apparently been forbidden to do so for some reason that is not clear to me, so I'll leave it up to others. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 19:29, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I reverted some changes made by 208... and asked him to bring up reference issues here, because I was afraid of changing formats after Nikkimaria's check had been done. If 208's changes are fine, please revert my reversion of him. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I presume CZmarlin and 208.81.184.4 are one and the same? Why do you keep going back and forth between the two? I mass reverted your original edits because you made some drastic changes that I strongly felt were undesirable, such as unlinking every author and every publisher. That's a complete misread of WP:OVERLINK. You also had mysterious edits such as "missing space" that were impossible to understand from the diffs. And several of your changes undid things I had already done to respond to Nikkimaria's comments above. After the reversion I tried to restore things I thought were worthwhile, but I missed some due the maze of diffs. But to answer your specific points that you now raise:
1) I've never understood how "last=L | first=F" produces anything different from "author=L, F" from the reader's perspective, but I have no objection to it being changed, it's just that you always make those changes intertwined with other ones that I do object to
2) I've tried the "editor" parameters but they produce awful output in this case, "ed" with no period for a single editor and nothing at all with a double period for joint editors; look at your version here to see what I mean. So I went back to doing it by hand to satisfy one of Nikkimaria's comments.
3) Is there a WP MoS guideline for where "Jr." goes in last, first order? But I'm okay with your ordering. And I've now done the changes to make it so (since Chicago Manual of Style endorses it).
4) The Mitt Romney article relies heavily upon the Boston Globe 7-part series, and both BG and Deseret News move individual entries in that series behind the paywall and back out again on a repeating basis. Therefore the editors there built this redundant layer of url's so that some copy somewhere of it would always be available. I'm using the same layering here. And what's the harm?
5) The page with its own URL is because only part of that book is available for free, not the whole thing, and there's another reference to a page that isn't available.
6) Actually, the cover part needs only a minimal citation; I've reworked this to flow better in the footnote, see FN 17 and see what you think.
NR1) You misread that one, it's not a series of three but a one and a pair.
NR2) WP:CATEGORY actually says "The order in which categories are placed on a page is not governed by any single rule (for example, it does not need to be alphabetical, although partially alphabetical ordering can sometimes be helpful). Normally the most essential, significant categories appear first." That said, I have no objection if they are alphabetized, and I have restored that.
In sum, I realize you are putting a lot of effort into these gnomish edits, but in some cases there are reasons why things are the way they are, and in the FAC case it's better to talk and get agreement before mass editing. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't know who CZmarlin is but that's not me. I haven't been making any effort to unlinking anything. It's not easy in the dif tool right now to see where missing space are added, so perhaps it would have been more clear with a different type of notation in the edit summary (will try that here):

A) Republican Partypolitician → Republican Party politician (dif)
B) electedstudent body president → elected student body president (dif)
C) </ref>The abject → </ref> The abject (dif)
D) newDetroit → new Detroit (dif)
E) theAmerican Automobile Manufacturers Association → the American Automobile Manufacturers Association (dif, by 128.8.65.2, not me)
F) (dif)
(1) [[National Press Club (USA)|National Press Club]] , the → [[National Press Club (USA)|National Press Club]], the (fixing a spacing issue I accidentally introduced by putting a space before the coma)
(2) attack on Pearl Harborthat → attack on Pearl Harbor that
(3) firmNash-Kelvinator → firm Nash-Kelvinator
G) theInternational Labor Office → the International Labor Office (dif)
H) TheRambler brand → The Rambler brand (dif)
I) forLieutenant Governor of Michigan → for Lieutenant Governor of Michigan (dif)
J) afavorite son → a favorite son (dif)
K) CongressmanNeil Staebler → Congressman Neil Staebler (dif)
L) theMichigan National Guard → the Michigan National Guard (dif)
M) John Lindsayand → John Lindsay and (dif)
N) infamousPruitt–Igoe → infamous Pruitt–Igoe (dif)
Ah, I see what happened now on these. This big formatting edit by CZMarlin right before your edits somehow collapsed the space out between a word and a "[[" in a number of cases. When I reverted the chain of edits starting with his and including yours, the problem went away, causing me to wonder what it was in the first place. In any case, the article doesn't have any of these missing spaces now.

As for the numbered points above:

1) "last=L | first=F" produces better meta-data than "author=L, F" on key parameters (the most important being surname)
Agreed, but is that meta-data exploited anywhere right now? I have no objection to this change being done, but it should be done first and with no other formatting changes in the same edits, so any discussions or disputes about the other changes don't put this one at risk of reversion.
2) The editor parameters are critical in certain circumstances, such as...
Herman, Max (2007). "Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967". In Rucker, Walter C.; Upton, James N (eds.). Encyclopedia of American Race Riots. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 167–170. ISBN 0-313-33301-7.
...which looks like this is in Wiki markup:
{{cite book | last=Herman | first=Max | chapter=Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967 | editor-first=Walter C. | editor-last=Rucker | editor2-first=James N | editor2-last=Upton | title=Encyclopedia of American Race Riots | publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] | location=Westport, Connecticut | year=2007 | isbn=0-313-33301-7 | pages=167–170}}
Unfortunately this is how it displays currently (after your revert)...
Rucker, Walter C.; Upton, James N. (eds.) (2007). "Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967". Encyclopedia of American Race Riots. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 167–170. ISBN 0-313-33301-7. {{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
...which looks like this is in Wiki markup:
{{cite book | last=Herman | first=Max | chapter=Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967 | first=Walter C. | last=Rucker | first2=James N. (eds.) | last2=Upton | title=Encyclopedia of American Race Riots | publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] | location=Westport, Connecticut | year=2007 | isbn=0-313-33301-7 | pages=167–170}}
Notice with your preferred version that we never actually see the true contributor of this entry to that encyclopedia, instead only seeing the editors, since the first/last perimeters are used twice in that template. One way to take care of this, and include "(eds)", could be...
Herman, Max (2007). "Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967". In Rucker, Walter C.; Upton, James N. (eds) (eds.). Encyclopedia of American Race Riots. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 167–170. ISBN 0-313-33301-7. {{cite book}}: |editor2-first= has generic name (help)
...which looks like this is in Wiki markup:
{{cite book | last=Herman | first=Max | chapter=Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967 | editor-last=Rucker | editor-first=Walter C. | editor2-last=Upton | editor2-first=James N. (eds) | title=Encyclopedia of American Race Riots | publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] | location=Westport, Connecticut | year=2007 | isbn=0-313-33301-7 | pages=167–170}}
We could also try the citation template instead of cite book...
Herman, Max (2007), "Detroit (Michigan) Riot of 1967", in Rucker, Walter C.; Upton, James N. (eds.) (eds.), Encyclopedia of American Race Riots, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group, pp. 167–170, ISBN 0-313-33301-7 {{citation}}: |editor2-first= has generic name (help)
...but this introduces it's own set if issues.
OK, you're right that I lost the author of the selection, I missed it (!?) and that's no good at all. But your top version is also problematic, because it doesn't indicate that Rucker and Upton are editors (I've seen volumes with primary authors and guest writers for chapters, so "eds" can't be assumed). Also it only avoids a double period after "N" by your having magic knowledge to not put any period after the "N" in the coding. So I've changed the article to use your middle alternative, thanks.
3) Thanks, looks fine.
4) The series in the Deseret News is not behind a paywall; the current URL just is different than what is used as the "original" in the citation. I don't see why we'd prefer to use a 3rd party archive instead of a link to the actual source material from the original publisher, since it's available at the updated URL I provided. Having the archive link is fine, but we really should include the working DN link in that citation as well.
OK, I've swapped the two urls and reworked the text in the cite, see if that's what you're looking for.
5) Makes sense.
6) The cover citation is fine the way you changed it.
NR1) The National Press Club is both a professional organization and a private social club; given that Romney was not a professional journalist, the focus of this sentence is that he joined three prominent private social clubs/organizations, making this a simple list of three items, where the double "and" is out of place.
Well, I understand your point but respectfully still disagree. He wasn't a journalist but he was a professional lobbyist and part of his job description would be to talk to reporters and columnists, since how an issue is framed in the press is an important part of convincing Congress to see it your way. To me that's a different beast than country clubs, which are purely social, although of course politics and business are discussed within them too. Furthermore your wording – "Romney joined the National Press Club, the Burning Tree and Congressional Country Clubs; ..." – seems wrong to me, as you either have one too many or one too few 'clubs'.
NR2) While by no means mandatory, or even preferred in some cases, alphabetical order of cats has the added benefit of making maintaining the cats much simpler, including making duplicate categories very obvious. I appreciate you restoring them to that order.

Thanks for responding in detail to these minor issues. I've tried to extend you the same courtesy, hoping to clarify my actions. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 18:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks very much for your responses and I'm sorry things got off on the wrong foot here. The major item remaining is doing the 'author to first,last' changes. If you want to do it (again), go for it, as I said above. Otherwise I'll try to fit it in at some point. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:23, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I have now gone ahead and done all the 'author to first, last' changes. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments by Mark Arsten — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mark Arsten (talk • contribs) 03:07, January 23, 2012
  • Alright, this looks like an interesting article. I'll be reviewing this for compliance with 1a, 1b, 2a, and 2b.
Thanks very much for your comments, I have started making changes in response to them.
  • The lead looks fine, just a few small comments:
  • "There he turned around the struggling firm by focusing all efforts on the smaller Rambler car." I think this could be revised a bit for clarity (smaller than?).
Done, by replacing "smaller" with "compact".
  • "Romney was a strong supporter of the American Civil Rights Movement while governor." Did he support it before/after his term or was this a just a political thing?
Done, by removing "while governor" (not just a political thing).
Done.
Seems like a common English word to me (certainly the root is common), and if I link that, it would be odd not to link "public service" right after that, but there is no useful article for that. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:42, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Early life and background
  • "They practiced monogamy." Was this the norm in their area at that time or were there polygamists around?
I've added that polygamy went into general decline among Mormons after the 1890 Manifesto (they married in 1895).
  • "The farm was not well located and failed when potato prices fell." What does it mean that it was not well located?
Changed to "not on good land".
Shorter form means the city too, but maybe it didn't back then, so have added "City".
  • "with their debts taking a dozen years to pay off." Maybe rephrase to avoid the with noun -ing construction.
Changed to "and having to take a dozen years to pay off their debts".
Yes, now linked (thought it was already).
  • Missionary work
  • "Three decades later, Romney said that his missionary time had meant more to him in his work than any other experience" I don't understand what is meant by "in his work" here.
Changed to "in developing his career". Wasted Time R (talk) 11:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Early career
  • "He followed LaFount to Washington, D.C., in fall 1929, after her father had accepted an appointment" should probably be more specific per WP:SEASON.
  • "With one of his brothers, Romney opened a dairy bar in nearby Virginia during this time." Maybe be a bit more specific about time here.
I never found a source with a more precise time on either of these events.
  • "Romney did not attend for long, or nor graduate from, any college in which he was enrolled" Should probably tweak that a bit.
Now changed to "Romney did not attend for long, or graduate from, any of the colleges in which he was enrolled; ...".
  • "instead he has been described as an autodidact." Can we say "he became an autodidact"? (I love that word)
I'm using this in a personality sense, and I think this was just something in Romney's nature (and in some other people like him) – at a certain point they don't respond that well to formal education and instead are eager to go out in the world and do things and learn along the way.
  • "LaFount had the opportunity to sign a $50,000, three-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, but Romney convinced her to return to Washington where he worked for Alcoa and the Aluminum Wares Association as a lobbyist." In the last sentence you had him as a salesman in LA, maybe note the transition? Also, is there a good way to note what the value of $50k was back then?
I've reworded the sentence to convey his transition. As for the value of $50K, there's a template somewhere which adds "(such-and-such today)", but I'm reluctant to use it here because then I'd have to use it in about eight or nine other places in the article where money amounts are mentioned. And to give context I'd have to know how it compared to other studio offers at the time, which I don't.
  • "He was chosen by Pyke Johnson, a Denver newspaperman and automotive industry trade representative, whom he met at the Press Club, to join the newly-formed Trade Association Advisory Committee to the National Recovery Administration, whose work continued even after that agency was declared unconstitutional in 1935." This sentence seems a bit unclear to me.
I've reworded it and split it into two.
  • Pyke Johnson, worth a redlink?
Would be borderline as an article I think – NYT has several mentions of him but no obit, for example.
  • Automotive industry representative
  • "These included over 3 million motorized vehicles, 80 percent of all tanks and tank parts, 75 percent of all aircraft engines, half of all diesel engines, and a third of all machine guns." Maybe something a bit more specific than "These" here.
Changed "These" to "This", which makes it clear I think.
  • What is a "short complex contract-termination procedure"?
Changed "cut short" to "forgo".
  • "U.S. employer delegate" Should there be a hyphen here?
Reworded sentence to avoid issue.
  • American Motors Corporation CEO
  • I made a few copyedits here, as always, feel free to revert.
Only undid one ", and" to semi-colon.
  • "Though AMC was on the verge of being taken over by corporate raider Louis Wolfson, Romney was able to fend him off." When were they on the verge?
1957, added.
  • "However, when he felt his salary and bonus was excessively high for a year, he gave the excess back to the company." When did this happen?
Changed to "whenever", as this was a general practice.
  • Local church and civic leadership
  • "preached occasional sermons" Would "occasionally preached sermons" be better or am I imagining things?
So changed.
  • "In 1959, he received the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith's Americanism award." What was this award in recognition of?
I don't know ... I've looked at a half-dozen of these awards and none say what it is for. But I found a 1962 story that also thought it important, so I added that as an additional cite.
  • "it made nearly 200 recommendations for economy and efficiency and for the need for better teacher pay and new infrastructure funding." Maybe add some punctuation here.
Shortened and punctuated.
  • "Romney helped a $90 million education-related bond issue and tax increase win an upset victory in an April 1959 referendum." Was this a state vote or a city vote?
Clarified as statewide.
  • "After a period of pained indecision and a two-day prayer fast," I suggest "two days of prayer and fasting".
To me that loses meaning, since the indecision went on for a while and the prayer and fasting were connected. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I should have been more clear, I meant to suggest "After a period of pained indecision and two days of prayer and fasting," Mark Arsten (talk) 18:55, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Governor of Michigan
  • "were more likely to vote Republican than the heavily Democratic residents of the city itself." I'm not sure about the use of "the city itself". Maybe something like "the city's urban areas"
Clarified to indicate suburbs of Detroit.
  • "He almost always eschewed political activities on Sundays, the Mormon Sabbath." Sundays or Sunday? I'm not sure.
Change to Sunday.
  • "Whites and Negroes, in my opinion, have got to learn to know each other." Emphasis original, I presume?
Yes.
  • "In 1965, Romney visited South Vietnam for 31 days and said that he was continuing his strong support for U.S. military involvement there." Not a big deal, but is there a good place earlier in the article to note he supported the war?
Not really; I thought this was a compact way of saying that.
  • "George Romney helped Mitt's fiancée Ann Davies convert to Mormonism." In Mitt Romney you write that he "guided" her conversion. Maybe try use the same language in each? (or maybe I'm reading too much into this).
Changed to "George Romney guided Mitt's fiancée Ann Davies in her conversion to Mormonism".
  • "His share of the black vote rose to over 30 percent, a virtually unprecedented accomplishment for a Republican." That is impressive, do you know if any other Republican candidates have gotten that much?
Interesting question – I can think of a few possibilities, but would require some research.
  • "but got the state to where it had a surplus." Maybe something like "left office with a surplus"?
So changed. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:52, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Arsten (talk) 23:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • 1968 presidential campaign
  • "Romney announced an exploratory phase in February 1967, beginning with a visit to Alaska and the Rocky Mountain states." Might want to clarify that it was a political exploratory phrase (is there an article on that?), so it doesn't sound like he was going exploring the wilderness of Alaska.
So clarified. But I think the Exploratory committee structure came in later years, so I didn't link it.
  • Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
  • "moving blacks out of inner city ghettos" Should this be inner-city?
Yes, so changed.
  • "Based on his automotive industry experience, Romney thought that the cost of housing could be significantly reduced if in-factory modular construction techniques were used." was modular housing construction a novel idea then? Maybe note that if it was.
I see Google News Archive stories on this going back to the late 1940s and 1950s, so I'm not confident enough to state this.
  • "Wife Lenore Romney ended up running instead, losing badly to incumbent Democrat Philip A. Hart." I'm not sure we have to mention here that she was his wife, since it's clear from earlier.
"Wife" removed.
  • "assisted housing for low and moderate income families" Should there be hyphens here?
I've seen both forms, but more with hyphen, so changed it.
  • "and a local citizen's representative." Citizen's or citizens'?
The latter, changed.
  • "but in the end was unable to bring about meaningful alterations in American segregation patterns, with no equivalent effort having happened since then or likely to in the foreseeable future." Could you clarify the timing here (when this was said)?
Added 2008 context of statements.
  • Final years
  • "The Governor George Romney Lifetime Achievement Award is given annually in Michigan, to recognize citizens who have demonstrated a commitment to community involvement and volunteer service throughout their lifetimes." Who gives the award? The State of Michigan?
Yes, the state, so clarified. Wasted Time R (talk) 05:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Arsten (talk) 19:45, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for all your useful comments! Wasted Time R (talk) 05:19, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome, thanks for doing all this work. At this point I am confident that every issue I could find is satisfied, so I am more than willing to Support promotion to Featured Article. Mark Arsten (talk) 05:30, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much! Wasted Time R (talk) 05:36, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:GeroRomney2-Head.jpg gives as a source File:GeroRomney2.jpg, which gives as a source...File:GeroRomney2-Head.jpg
I've clarified the source descriptions on Commons; both of these are actually crops of File:Ford, Matthews, and Romney (1986).jpg.
  • File:George_and_Lenore_Romney_grave.JPG: what is the copyright status of the engraving on the grave? Nikkimaria (talk) 21:55, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The quote from Doctrine and Covenants is from Section 90, which dates back to the 1830s, so it shouldn't be an issue. What's written after that, "To many he was known ...", is specific to Romney and presumably was written by family members. What the copyright status of that is, I don't know. I looked around to see if such inscriptions are copyrightable, or if freedom of panorama is at play, but didn't find anything. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, should've been more specific - I meant the engraving of his profile (I'm assuming), not the words. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:46, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I get it now. You're right, freedom of panorama does not cover photos of works of the visual arts in the U.S., so this has to go. I've removed the image. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:37, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments Nice-looking article. I've got a few comments:

  • Last paragraph in "Early life and background": I'm not sure what "co-located" means.
Located at the same site as the high school of the same name.
  • I linked a few cities, it's a problem feel free to revert.
I unlinked London, which FAC reviewers are always taking out; we'll see about the others.
  • In "Early career," second paragraph: what is a dairy bar? Is it a tavern where one drinks milk?
I found a link for it and added it to the article.
  • Same section, last paragraph: I think "newly-formed" does not take a hyphen, but I may be wrong so I left it in.
You're right, per the MoS. I took it out.
  • In "Governor of Michigan", the last sentence: I don't think you have to say that Fine is "noted". That word always seems like a journalist's POV when I read it in a newspaper. He has a Wikipedia article, so he's clearly notable (yes, sarcasm intended).
I might agree in general, but in this case he really was quite prominent and accomplished, and it's important to convey that to readers who don't click through. If there's an alternate adjective that can be used, I'm willing to change it.
  • In "1968 presidential campaign", first paragraph: I've gotten dinged for using "re-elected" instead of "reelected." Apparently, the former is British and the latter is American, though you and I are, I think, both Americans and we both seem to prefer the hyphen. <shrug>
From what I gather, "re-elect" is the proper form due to awkward doubled vowels, and many sites say so. Except that the AP style guide makes an exception for very commonly seen words like this one and uses "reelect". I've seen slow-motion edit wars over this question on other political articles. I'll wait and see if there are additional opinions here before changing it.
  • That's it: I enjoyed the article, and I hope to see (and would be happy to help you with) his son's article nominated for FA before too long. --Coemgenus (talk) 03:23, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for the comments. I think I'm going to wait on Mitt until it's clear who's going to win the nomination. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:12, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, works for me. Good luck with the nomination! --Coemgenus (talk) 02:08, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for your support. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:10, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Items that were fixed, but because reverts now need attention (in my opinion)

  • The lack of consistency in reference template citation usage (first/last vs. author) as well as in the reference format for books that have editor(s).
Already addressed above in the response to your alter ego 208.81.184.4.
Note to Wasted Time R: I do NOT have an alter ego. Please note that the individual at User talk:208.81.184.4 appears to be "registered to Vangent Inc. and may be shared by multiple users." I have no clue as to that organization. CZmarlin (talk) 04:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK ... two of us made that assumption, understandable given that you showed up at the same time at the same article making a largely similar set of complaints about formatting issues ... Wasted Time R (talk) 04:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reverts that removed updated checks and now several online references have missing access dates.
This article never uses access dates unless it's a web only reference with no publication date. (I'm of the school that holds that access dates give no value to the reader and indeed add visual confusion to the publication date.) This was already established in response to Nikkimaria's comments.
  • Improper formatting for "Jr." in the author’s name used in a reference (it would be correct if the "first=" and "last=" fields were not reverted back to "author=").
Already discussed in earlier response.
  • Why is there a need to Wiki link ‘’The New York Times’’ a total of 35 times in the Notes section? This newspaper is already linked in the first instance (out of the two times in appears) in the body of the article.
  • This overlinking is also in the case of the nine Wiki links to ‘’Time’’ magazine in the Notes section.
Reminder per WP guidelines: “Generally, a link should appear only once in an article” … thus it seems that 35 of them in the Notes section is exactly 35 too many.
WP:OVERLINK says "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, links may be repeated in infoboxes, tables, image captions, footnotes, ...", so the footnote usage here is a permitted exception. That said, I acknowledge that there are three approaches people take to linking publishers in cites: link every occurrence, link the first occurrence, link no occurrences. The first is most convenient for the readers, but upsets blue sea worriers. The second is very hard for editors to maintain on an ongoing basis, since the "first" reference can move, pop in, or pop out of an article. The last gives no help to the reader who wants to see what a given publication is about, so I don't like it at all. If link every occurrence is a deal breaker for you, I'll try and do the first reference one. But I'm not going to take all the publisher links out, and I'm not going to take author links out. Those are important for how the reader assesses the sources!
  • What is the purpose for red links to the ‘’Michigan Historical Review’’ and "Ashbrook Press" in the Notes section? They were removed, but these dead links are back again.
I'm a believer in WP:REDLINK ... someday somebody will be inspired to create an article or maybe a DYK about these publications.
  • Reminder per Wikipedia isbn guidelines: “Please use the 13-digit ISBN where possible”. Also, per reference guidelines the “Publisher (field) should not include corporate designation.”
I don't like 13-digit ISBN's for old topics like this; they seem anachronistic, since none of these books were published with them (many were published without any). Also, I made big effort to get all the ISBN's hyphenated per another of Nikkimaria's comments. I believe this is one of those live-and-let-live deals; if you see an article with nicely formatted 10-digit numbers, don't churn the article by changing them.
  • Specific footnote problems include:
29 - Why keep reverting to a dead link to the Boston Globe and to an archived version? This is a current url for the article: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/680195540/Mitt-Romney-the-beginning.html
Addressed above.
155 – Wrong author is listed for this article. Why was the correct author reverted?
Karen Tumulty wrote that article, I read it in the print magazine at the time. Jake Chessum is just the photographer credit for the top photo.
  • Lastly, the alt image description in the infobox does not show a “Tall, slim” man. Rather, it is just a face of the person and it is impossible to "see" from that picture that he is tall and slim. This was fixed, but why was this improper description put back?
Sorry, the top photo used to be the full standing image (that's present later in the article); I've fixed this. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:57, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! CZmarlin (talk) 02:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note that per a response above, all of the "author" cite parameters are now changed to use "first" and

"last". Wasted Time R (talk) 13:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I presume that you are the 208... IP that posted above, correct? Mark Arsten (talk) 03:04, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your presumption is false. I have no clue who is that IP contributor. I log on with my account for all my edits in WP. CZmarlin (talk) 03:52, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Noleander (prose only)

  • "Governor Jim Rhodes of Ohio more memorably said, "Watching George Romney run for the presidency was like watching a duck try to make love to a football." - Humorous, but needs explanation: What was the point of Rhodes? (one source says he meant the campaign was inept).
It means he was trying to do something that by nature he was ill-equipped to do, and thus was doing it poorly. But I think the quote should speak for itself; it loses its effectiveness if it is 'explained'.
Hmmm. I hear what you are saying, but this is an encyclopedia, and sarcasm/facetious remarks within articles must be qualified/explained. I'm pretty well read, yet I could not grasp what Rhodes' point was. We, as authors, are not trying to prove to readers how clever we are :-) I'd just reword it to something like "Rhodes felt that Romney's campaign was run poorly, and he commented "Watching ... " ". --Noleander (talk) 22:06, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've spent some time trying to find the original source of the quote, but I haven't found anything prior to the Teddy White book on the 1968 campaign, which is one of the cites I use. That's the one that other books footnote to, for instance. In his book (page 54), White doesn't attempt to explain what Rhodes meant, and neither do the large majority of books and articles and sites I looked at that repeat it. So to try to explain it might even be considered OR-ish on my part. (But it doesn't mean that Romney's campaign was poorly run, it means that by his very nature Romney was ill-suited to run for the presidency.) Given that many other sources use this quote without explicit explanation, including some that show up on Google Scholar, I'd like to continue to make the case that we can too. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Same Rhodes quote as above: Footnotes need to identify explicitly which source (book) the quote is from.
It's from both. I double-cited it to show that multiple authors considered it an apt portrayal of the campaign.
  • Prose quality is very good
Thanks!
  • " Romney resigned from AMC in 1962 to enter electoral politics .." It would be nice to know how that impacted AMC. Was the transition to a successor smooth? Was AMC adversely impacted? What did the board think of the decision?
Regarding what happened to AMC, I originally wanted to cover that, but I gather it's a complicated story with no easy answer (AMC changed strategies a couple of years later and it didn't work, but that doesn't prove that sticking with the Romney approach would have worked either, since the Big Three were more directly competing with AMC). So instead I've put in a parenthetical link to his successor, Roy Abernethy, and the reader can explore what happened there (that article has a long description). I've never read what the board reaction was but they can't have been surprised, because as the article says Romney was oft-mentioned for a political role from 1959 on.
  • " ... .saying he had reservations about Goldwater regarding civil rights and political extremism." - Too ambiguous. Did he think Goldwater was too extreme? or not extreme enough? Did he think Goldwater was too resistant to Civil Rights legislation? Or too enthusiastic about it?
I thought this would be clear from the previous context, but I've changed it to "... saying he had reservations about Goldwater's lack of support for civil rights and the political extremism that Goldwater embodied."
  • "Romney's greatest weakness was a lack of foreign policy ..." - if that is the opinion of a single source, then source should probably be identified in the article. But if a unanimous opinion, okay to leave as is.
I added a second cite to this.
  • "The perception grew that Romney was gaffe-prone and an oaf; the campaign, beset by internal rivalries, soon went through the first of several reorganizations.". A period might be more apt than a semicolon.
Done.
  • "... something Nixon did not forget." Would "... Nixon would later remember" be better?
Nixon was the type to never forget a slight and hold a grudge forever, so I think what I have gets that across a bit more.
As I understand it, the latter was one part of the former. But I misread the importance of Romney's role in this in the source I had, and another source seemed to say something different and relatively minor about that role. So I removed this mention. However, I expanded the introduction into the FHA scandal that's later in that paragraph, in part because of this interesting NYT op-ed from the other day. That professor's argument seemed a bit of a stretch, and as an op-ed I can't use it as a source, but I did want to tie in to the scandal description the fact that this came out of one of the earliest mortgage-backed securities efforts. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:54, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Missing "alt" text for several of the photos.
Now added (these images just came in during FAC).
  • Link Chihuahua needs to be disambiguated (see the "Disambig" link at upper right: it is a really handy tool).
Now done (I ran the dab tool before, but this link got added during FAC).
  • The "Ext links" tool (upper right of this window) shows that one external links is bogus, and one is suspicious:
  1. As They Saw It: HUD's Secretaries Reminisce About Carrying Out the Mission (info) [huduser.org]
This one works, even thought reftools always flags it.
  1. "Buildings Renamed G. Mennen Williams Building And George W. Romney Building" (info) [legislature.mi.gov],
This one often gives trouble, but User:208.81.184.4 has just changed it to something that seems to work.
  • "Secretary of Housing and Urban Development" section is unusually long. Are there one or two logical portions that could be made into subsections?
Not really, it was pretty much all of one piece. And there is single-level sectioning for the whole article, I wouldn't want to subdivide just one section. User:John Broughton came through last month and split many of my longer paragraphs into multiple ones, which to me loses some thematic coherence and makes this and other sections appear long than they are. Take a look at this older version of the article to see if that section seems less long to you.
  • Outstanding article. Leaning towards Support, if the above are addressed.

End Noleander comments [20:35, February 2, 2012‎ Noleander]

Thanks very much for your kind words and comments. I will begin responding to them. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First set of responses changes done, more to follow. Wasted Time R (talk) 15:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Now all changes and responses done. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:54, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much for your support! Wasted Time R (talk) 04:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 03:38, 10 February 2012 [6].

Monteverdi's lost operas

Nominator(s): Brianboulton (talk) 12:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Monteverdi played a key part in the development of opera as a theatrical and musical art form, so depending on your standpoint you may wish to bless him or curse him. Of the ten operas he actually wrote himself, seven are lost; in those days operas marked specific occasions or celebrations, and once they had been performed their music tended to be discarded like yesterday's newspaper. Monteverdi's missing works are objects of great fascination and speculation to students of baroque music and early opera history (and a matter of relief to numerous others). In any event it is interesting to see how even so distinguished a figure as Monteverdi repeatedly got the runaround from his lords and masters. Thanks to all who participated in a particularly detailed peer review, and here's hoping. Brianboulton (talk) 12:05, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support – I took part in the peer review, where such minor quibbles as I had were thoroughly dealt with. This article, IMO, meets all the Featured Article criteria. Moreover it is an article that will enhance Wikipedia's prestige: it fills a significant gap in online coverage of an important aspect of musical history, with a comprehensiveness and authority unmatched elsewhere. – Tim riley (talk) 12:32, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you. Knowing your, well, unenthusiasm for the man in question, your willingness to review and indeed supply material for my efforts is noble indeed. Brianboulton (talk) 10:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support - This is a well-written and excellently sourced article. In my opinion it meets or exceeds all of the FA criteria, and would make a superb addition to the roster of Feature Articles on wikipedia. Well done!4meter4 (talk) 12:41, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Support - I also took part in the peer review and all of my (minor) concerns were addressed there. The article more than meets the FA criteria and there are no dab links. The external link checker finds that some links are to a subscription required site, but this is properly noted in the article references. Well done, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 16:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Media review The painting images are all old enough to be out of copyright and thus photos of them are free in the US. The photo of the palace is also free. The sound file is free. I added a link to the web page of the uploader (who is no longer active here), and I note Raul654 OK'ed the file's transfer to Commons (so it should be fine). The uploader recorded and sang the work himself, so that seems fine. The only possible question is which version of the song did he record - I assume it is the one from the Madrigals book, so all should be fine. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 16:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source spot-check:

  • Ref 95: Article text is covered in page cited, and is sufficiently paraphrased.
  • Ref 110: Article text is covered in page cited, and is sufficiently paraphrased.

--Laser brain (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Addendum: I reviewed the source list in its entirety, and found all of them to be appropriate and reliable. --Laser brain (talk) 16:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I went through this while it was in peer review and any concerns I had were addressed. An excellent piece of work and a great addition to our opera articles. --Laser brain (talk) 17:12, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for the sources spotcheck, for your help at peer review and for your support here. Brianboulton (talk) 10:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comment on FA criteria 1 and 2. Excellent coverage, solid writing and consistency throughout. This represents everything a FA should be. Auree ★ 00:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • In the lede, there's no mention of Monteverdi's nationality or any location where his works took place until the second paragraph. I'm not too sure, but it might be favourable to include this somewhere in the first paragraph.
  • "The composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643), in addition to a large output of church music and madrigals, wrote prolifically for the stage." Maybe it's just me, but without the introduction of a verb in the first clause the interruption reads quite oddly.
  • Check for usage of restrictive vs nonrestrictive clauses--there are several instances in the lede where the latter is applied incorrectly.
  • I've made a light copy-edit to the lede; feel free to revert my changes. Auree ★ 09:14, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have added his nationality (thanks for spotting the omission). As to the "missing" verb, I could introduce "producing" before "a large output...", though I'm not sure that it would be an improvement. Can you give an example of an incorrect nonrestrictive clause? Perhaps I know the proose too well, but I'm afraid I'm not seeing it. Thanks for your interest in the article. Brianboulton (talk) 10:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah, Graham seems to have taken care of the clauses already. Lede looks great, thanks. I'll take the liberty of adjusting any other faulty clauses as I read through. Btw, minor point, but does the article implement the serial comma or not? Right now it's used interchangeably throughout. Auree ★ 21:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Background

  • "came into in general use in about" ?
  • "The new genre had specific characteristics such as a complete story told through characters, and the use of recitative, aria and arioso as well as choruses in the vocal parts." Something seems off here, probably has to do with the comma placements vs the usage of as well as
  • "For example, Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) is a work whose precise genre has proved particularly difficult to define." Tighten to "For example, the precise genre of Monteverdi's Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624) has proved particularly difficult to define"?

For Mantua

  • "L'arianna was composed for the Mantua court as part of the festivities for the wedding of the heir to the duchy" Capitalization missing (?), and just a bit repetitive later on (for the... of the... for the... of the...)
  • "Monteverdi complained bitterly" Remove "bitterly"?
  • "Theseus agonises over his decision to abandon her, but is advised by his counsellor that he is wise to do so," Subtle ambiguity: "to do so" could refer to either his agonising over the decision or his abandoning Ariadne
  • A few minor tweaks, feel free to revert
  • "It seems that the Gonzaga court was trying to persuade Monteverdi to return to Mantua" Is "seems that" the best choice of words?
  • "Instead, he went to Parma, to work on a commission to provide musical entertainments" Is there any way to avoid the "to... to... to..."?
  • "while on a mission seeking aid against the armies that were encircling Mantua" Tighten by removing "on a mission"?
  • Some more tweaks.

For Venice

  • "{I]n the evening with torches there was acted and represented in music ..." Bracket glitch?
  • "By her temperament, Proserpina anticipates Poppea; Pachino is a forerunner for Ottone; some of the discourses have the rhetorical flavour of Nerone and Seneca in the later opera." I'm quite confused by this sentence
  • And some more. Obviously I'm not finding much to nitpick about here; the article is extremely comprehensive and the writing is great. Auree ★ 21:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have dealt with these, either per your suggestions or using my own judgement. There were some clumsy constructions and I'm glad you picked them up. I had no problem with your minor ce tweaks. I'm grateful for your help. Brianboulton (talk) 23:34, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changes look great, thanks. I still recommend checking for serial comma consistency, but I'm happy to support this promotion now (: Auree ★ 00:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for your work & support Will check the serial comma issue. Brianboulton (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources look good, just a few stylistic nitpicks:

  • Why is "Carter 2002" the only short citation that includes the year?
  • Because he is also the author of another source - see ref 31
  • Ref 42: Check spacing
  • Fixed
  • In most references, the subscription templates have been added after the citation templates sans spacing. It might be preferable to insert spaces for aesthetic purposes (see Ref 112).
  • Spaces inserted
  • Needs consistency in how publisher locations are notated for sources
  • I have regularised the format of state names - not sure what else?
  • Check author notation for Monteverdi (1994)
  • What's the problem?
  • This is going to sound silly, but I can't remember what problem I found before. Struck. Auree ★ 00:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check editor notation for Beat, Janet E. (1968) vs Rosand, Ellen (2007).
  • Fixed typo
  • Apart from the typo, punctuation inconsistencies (bolded): "An Icognito debate: questions of meaning". In Whenham, John and Wistreich, Richard (eds)." vs "Monteverdi and the Opera Orchestra of his Time" in Arnold, Denis and Fortune, Nigel (eds):"
  • Got it! The Beat info was picked up from another article where a slightly different format was used, but I have standardised now. Also corrected the spelling (Incognito) Brianboulton (talk) 01:08, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Auree ★ 21:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • One more I overlooked: "Incognito" is misspelled in the source and its short citation. Auree ★ 00:13, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for te sources review. Brianboulton (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Gilding the lily support I also participated in the peer review; my concerns were addressed then.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:50, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks. It should be on record that your PR participation was considerable. Brianboulton (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I haven't looked at the article in detail, but one thing struck me: the article on L'incoronazione di Poppea correctly points out that it is very far from certain that the opera was composed in its entirety by Monteverdi, yet in this article it is always labelled as by Monteverdi without any qualification. Perhaps a footnote could be added somewhere? --GuillaumeTell 11:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Excellent point, which I have addressed by the addition of a footnote. Brianboulton (talk) 16:01, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I have commented in the peer review am completely satisfied with the incorporation of a few concerns. One minor addition:

In the middle of the plot of Arianna I read "famous". Perhaps I am over-allergic to those words, but I think - since it's stated elsewhere that the lament is famous - it could be dropped in the plot. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed and done. Brianboulton (talk) 09:54, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Looked at the rest, impressed!

Support, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 22:59, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 03:38, 10 February 2012 [7].

John Barbirolli

Nominator(s): Tim riley (talk) 16:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article is one of a series on British conductors on which I've worked, and having got Henry Wood, Thomas Beecham and Adrian Boult to FA, I hope I have done Barbirolli justice too. After taking the article to GA in 2010, I revised and added to it substantially last year. Barbirolli was Toscanini's successor as chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, and was a celebrated guest conductor in opera in Rome and in the concert hall in Berlin, but he is principally remembered as the conductor and saviour of the Hallé Orchestra in England. He was a great, occasionally eccentric, musician and he deserves a top-flight article, which I hope I have given him. Tim riley (talk) 16:44, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Be consistent in whether page ranges are abbreviated or not
  • No citations to Kennedy 2008
  • Be consistent in whether punctuation is linked or not, and whether commas appear inside or outside quotation marks in titles - for example, compare FNs 7 and 10
  • Check pagination on FN 37
  • Be consistent in how editors are notated
  • Don't repeat cited sources in External links. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:48, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
All attended to, I think. Thanks as always for your sharp eyes. Tim riley (talk) 10:52, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with quibbles. I peer-reviewed this, but that was a while back and I have not looked at the article recently. I read it again with pleasure, but of course had to find a few things to niggle about:-

  • Second para of lead: Remove comma after "Born in London..." The first half of this paragraph is rather dense with "conductor/conducting" repetitions, which could perhaps be reduced by some slight rephrasing
  • Last sentence of lead: the "but" should be an "and" ("and was also admired..."
    • Someone else is ahead of me and has redrawn this sentence. Tim riley (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Shouldn't his baptismal names (Giovanni Battista) be mentioned in the lead intro? Otherwise an unaware reader might not realise that they are one and the same.
    • Done. Ought I to leave the repetition of his original name in the main text, too, do you think? Tim riley (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Personally I'd begin this section "Barbirolli was born on (date)...", without bolding - there is no real justification for bolding here. Brianboulton (talk) 15:02, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Fine with me. I'll follow your advice - thank you. Tim riley (talk) 15:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Southampton Row is within the sound of Bow Bells, and Barbirolli always regarded himself as a Cockney." Sentence looks misplaced where it is. Suggest promote to second sentence of the paragraph.
  • I also suggest you look for instances of over-punctuation, e.g. in sentences such as: "His father, Lorenzo Barbirolli (1864–1928), was a violinist, who had settled in London with his wife, Louise Marie, née Ribeyrol (1870–1962)". (Five commas among 20 words)
    • Pruned one, but most are, I think, grammatically necessary for clauses that describe rather than define. Tim riley (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • His scholarship at Trinity College of Music is mentioned in passing, but not how or when he acquired it.
    • Kennedy and Reid say no more than that he won it in 1910. I have changed "his" to "a". Tim riley (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "regular playing partner Ethel Bartlett": Could you mention she was a pianist (if this be she).
  • "...with whom he made several early broadcasts." Can you clarify the subject of "whom"?
  • "Barbirolli's ambition remained to conduct". Perhaps "remained" is wrong here, since this ambition has not been mentioned until now.
  • I'm slightly puzzled by "Barbirolli also won warm praise from Pablo Casals, whom he had accompanied in Haydn's D major cello concerto at the same concert." The word "accompanied" does not seem apposite, if he was conducting. (see also a later point)
    • You and I have disagreed about this before. I maintain that the orchestral part of a concerto is referred to as a matter of course as the "accompaniment" (see opening para of the WP Concerto article), and you can see JB described as accompanying concertos in Bicknell's obituary tribute to him, here, or in Kennedy, p. 171, where JB firmly declines "to become a piano concerto accompanist". Tim riley (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The positioning of the two sentences relating to his marriage to Marjorie Perry is chronologically correct, but awkward. Consider if this could be arranged better.
    • I agree, but short of having a separate "Personal life" section, as I did for the Beecham article, I can't think where else to put this information. Unlike Beecham's, JB's personal life was not notable enough to run to a whole section of its own, I think. Tim riley (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "a rough press campaign in New York from interested parties who wished to evict him from his post": I think this quotation should be attributed.
  • "In 1943 Barbirolli made another Atlantic crossing..." Can you clarify, e.g. "In 1943 Barbirolli flew back to England..."
    • I chose this phrasing rather carefully, because an exposition of the complete facts seemed to me to be rather wordy. JB crossed the Atlantic by ship to Portugal, and then went by plane from there to England. It was in Lisbon where Howard asked him to swap flights so that Howard could remain in Lisbon for a few days. According to some accounts, someone on Howard's flight bore a striking resemblance to Winston Churchill, which is why the Germans decided to shoot down a flight over a neutral country, but I cannot vouch for this. Tim riley (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Later he extended his teaching skills to the Royal Academy of Music..." Maybe replace "later" with a year?
  • "He found that mastering a Mahler symphony took between 18 months and two years..." Clarification necessary; maybe insert "him" between "took" and "between", since the statement is followed by a reference to "50 hours of rehearsal".
  • "Many of Barbirolli's pre-war recordings for HMV were of concertos. His reputation as an accompanist tended to obscure his talents as a symphonic conductor, and later, his detractors in New York "damned him with faint praise by exalting his powers as an accompanist and then implying that that was where it all stopped." Again, the use of the word "accompanist" confuses me in this section:. To me, an accompanist is a supporting player to a soloist, e.g. Gerald Moore; as such, Bruno Walter sometimes accompanied Kathleen Ferrier on the piano. I can't fit that understanding into the above; can you say in what sense Barbirolli was acting as an "accompanist" in these prewar HMV recordings?
  • Perhaps link, or better still describe, what is meant by an "Intendant". Otherwise it sounds like the person in charge of the cloakrooms.

These are not major matters, and I am sure you will have little difficulty disposing of them. Brianboulton (talk) 20:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for the support, and for the comments, which I have acted on as noted above. We shall have to agree to differ over "accompanying" concertos, but for the other points I have followed up your suggestions. Tim riley (talk) 10:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I had forgotten our earlier colloquy on the meaning of "accompany" in musical parlance. My problem is with what I will call the "Walter–Ferrier question". Bruno Walter accompanied Kathleen Ferrier on the piano during song recitals, and also conducted the orchestra when she sang works such as Mahler's Rückert songs and Kindertotenlieder. There ought to be a way of distinguishing between these rather different activities; in the latter case the orchestra is accompanying the singer, the conductor is directing both. That, m'lud, is the essence of my case, but I am not pressing it. Brianboulton (talk) 14:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Your magnanimity is much appreciated - thank you. Tim riley (talk) 15:28, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose and comprehensiveness. A few quibbles:

Lede
  • "seized the chance" Too dramatic for the lede, since you are not explaining at this time. You are also exactly duplicating the prose you use later, which I think is a bad idea.
Biography
  • Given his parentage, something should be said about his own nationality.
  • Date Otello's premiere
  • Although you do imply it in the lede, it may be worth mentioning his birth name early on.
    • I had this in the text, but took it out in the light of Brianboulton's comment above. – Tim riley (talk) 09:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "was to be absent in America," This sounds odd. Perhaps just say what he was doing across the pond.
  • " the other three were Elgar, Beecham and Pierre Monteux." This is clearly a great honour, then, judging by his fellows, I would move the information up in the sentence.
    • I take your point and have tussled mightily with this, but I can't find a way of mentioning the other three before JB without having the prose get complicated. I think I'll duck out and leave it as it is. – Tim riley (talk) 09:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Barbirolli's name was hardly known internationally" A little too flowery, I am afraid. Perhaps "Barbirolli was not well-known internationally".
    • Hmm. I have redrawn, but I want to get across how completely unknown JB was outside Britain. One of his biographers wrote: "Barbirolli's appointment was announced by the New York Philharmonic Society's directorial board on 7th April 1936. The musical world rubbed incredulous eyes. … In much newspaper comment the following day surprise verged on perplexity. Nobody had heard of John Barbirolli. … What sense was there in giving the New York Philharmonic to a man who had never been on an American front page before or, so far as could be made out, on any front page of moment anywhere?" I have added this as a footnote to make the point clearer. – Tim riley (talk) 09:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In the spring of 1936, " This paragraph is a bit of a problem. As it delves further into the past it should probably be "had been confronted", etc.
  • "political lobbying" I would not disparage it with such a term. Concerns about Nazi Germany proved to be justified.
  • " the post should have been offered to "native conductors"" One post being divided among multiple native conductors reads oddly. I take it you want to keep the quote as colourful; perhaps "preference should have been given to "native conductors"
  • "Players and critics in Europe and the United States commented on the improvement in the playing of their orchestras when Barbirolli was in charge." Since the previous sentence can be read to limit Barbirolli's training to the Halle, this is jarring as the first hint that he was training outside the Halle.
  • "but he declined to be deflected from the Hallé" This seems a bit odd in phrasing.
    • I rather think I stole the phrase from one of JB's biographers, but I agree and I've redrawn. – Tim riley (talk) 09:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "worked at " a plebeian phrase for his art, no?
  • "the Philharmonia" it is long since you mentioned them; consider a link.
  • "Barbirolli was appointed Conductor Laureate." If someone took over workaday conducting duties, I would say who. Additionally, it might be wise to mention that acceptance of such an appointment meant he was stepping back a bit.
    • Excellent points, thank you. Both now dealt with, and I've added a footnote on his successor. – Tim riley (talk) 09:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "His last" Begins consecutive sentences in the penultimate paragraph of the bio section.
Honours
  • "The Barbirolli Hall" This sentence is somewhat convoluted, and might benefit from simplification.

--Wehwalt (talk) 01:29, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks indeed for the support and the suggestions above, which I shall enjoy going through carefully tomorrow. Tim riley (talk) 18:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Now complete. I've adopted all your suggestions except one, which I can't find a smooth way of incorporating. Several of your suggestions have led to important improvements in the article, and I'm most grateful. – Tim riley (talk) 09:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. As usual with a Tim riley article, this is a delight to read, as well as thoroughly researched, well illustrated and comprehensive. I also have a few minor suggestions, but ignore any of them with which you disagree:

  • Lead
I wonder if this information is important enough to be in the intro: "his father and grandfather were violinists".
Perhaps not, on reflection. I've removed. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The intro says: "in the 1950s he conducted productions of works by Verdi … at Covent Garden". Does this mean operas only, or other works also?
Operas only, but I drafted thus to avoid two "opera/operas" in one sentence. I think it's clear. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Early years
"Barbirolli was born in … London…. He was a British national from birth". Aren't all children born in London British nationals from birth?
I don't know the legal position. I think (mind, I say I think) it was so in JB's day but is no longer so. I added this in response to an earlier FAC suggestion, and on balance I'm inclined to leave it in. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"I was scrubbing the floor in the Officers' Mess when they came and invited me to take over." I don't have a comment here, except, what a delightful story!
  • First conducting posts
"John Barbirolli's Chamber Orchestra". Did he continue to conduct this after he started at British National Opera Company?
It seems not. The biographical sources don't specify, but I've checked the concert listings in The Times, and "John Barbirolli's Chamber Orchestra" is not mentioned after 1928. However, that's not proof positive, and I'm chary of making an unqualified statement. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Barbirolli had never conducted a chorus or a large orchestra". We just said that, in 1924, he established the Guild of Singers – was this a union? Why did he do this if he never conducted a chorus?
The Guild was a group set up to allow its (soloist) members to give joint concerts. There wasn't a chorus. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"He made his operatic début. … made his début at the Royal Opera House…" I thought prev. FA discussions had indicated not to use the accent over the word debut?
They did indeed. I may have been sabotaged by the spell-check or alternatively have been in didactic mood when drafting. Now purged of its accent. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"He conducted a Royal Philharmonic Society concert at which Ralph Vaughan Williams was presented with the society's Gold Medal". Is Vaughan Williams's receiving this medal really of interest in this article?
The medal is Britain's highest musical honour, and there is considerable reflected glory in being the conductor at the concert at which the medal is awarded. For one so new to conducting as JB, this was a big feather in his cap. By a rather pleasing symmetry, when JB was awarded the medal in the 1950s it was presented to him by Vaughan Williams. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"The marriage was unsuccessful and within four years the two were living apart." Do we know that it was a thoroughly bad marriage? It lasted longer than many show-biz marriages. I would cut the first five words, unless we are saying that they quarrelled throughout the marriage. Also, we need a comma before "and".
Good point. I have moved the statement about living apart to the following section to sit alongside the divorce and remarriage. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"the musical world was taken by surprise in 1936 when he was invited to conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra…" Passive voice? Also, shouldn't this go in the next section?
I don't think making this active mood improves it: "It took the musical world by surprise…." As to placing, I tried this above and below the break, and it seemed to me that the prose and the narrative flow better with this sentence before the section break. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • New York Philharmonic
"In 1939, Barbirolli married the British oboist Evelyn Rothwell. The marriage lasted for the rest of Barbirolli's life." Of course! Have you ever done it with an oboeist?
"I was longing to return and it was just a question…" We need a comma before the "and".
It's a quote, and not my prose to tinker with, I'm afraid. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hallé Orchestra
The image of Free Trade Hall is less than exciting and is the fourth image in a row of a building. How about an image of Charles Hallé or Malcolm Sargent or the rather more exciting image of Albert Hall, moving the Hallé programme image higher (even though it's mentioned further down)?
True enough about the image. Hallé would be possible, and I'll experiment with how he looks there. There isn't a free image of Sargent, and I can't see how fair use would wash for using him here. The Albert Hall wasn't really core to JB's activities, and I don't think an image of that would be appropriate. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"He retained his reputation for training orchestras: after Barbirolli's death…" How about, "Barbirolli retained his reputation …: after his death…"
Yes, done. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"Barbirolli received invitations to take up more prestigious and lucrative conductorships. … LSO, BBC…" Did he reject these offers? We note that he declined to be wooed away from the Hallé, but it may not be crystal clear.
Good. Amended. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Honours, awards and memorials
I made some minor proofreader's changes.
Thank you for them. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Repertoire and recordings
"Barbirolli's repertoire was not as wide…" This may be a cross-pond issue, but I would say "broad" rather than "wide". But I think "wide range", in the last section, is ok.
I think it must indeed be a UK-v-US thing. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pre-war
"The same year, he began his long association with the His Master's Voice label…" Should we add the short form "(HMV)" right after the full name?
We should. Now done. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1943 and later
"including many recordings still in the catalogues in 2010." Can you update this to 2012 or at least 2011? -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:53, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I've checked the EMI catalogue, and the recordings mentioned are still listed. (Unsurprisingly, as I gather they have always been good sellers.) Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for the support, and for the interesting points above. I shall enjoy working through them over the weekend. Tim riley (talk) 18:27, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Now done. All suggestions adopted, except where noted above. I'll experiment with the images as suggested. I'm most grateful for your support and comments. Tim riley (talk) 10:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Made one follow-up suggestion above. Again, congratulations on a super article. -- Ssilvers (talk) 07:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spot checks

  • [2]a: The source says his father was Italian, but the article says Venetian, though [3] says Barbirolli spoke the "Venetian dialect"; otherwise, OK.
    • Not my drafting (I wrote just "Italian") but Venetian is accurate. Kennedy (1971) p. 14 refers to "the Venetian Barbirollis". Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • [2]b: OK.
  • [2]c: His playing with the Carl Rosa, Ethel Bartlett, in restaurants, and in dance halls, and the four-word quote are not found in this reference.
    • New sources added. I can't track down the source for "restaurants", so I have deleted it. The four word quote is now attributed to the memoirs of JB's widow. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • [2]def: OK.
  • [3]a: The source says Lorenzo played at the premiere of Otello, but I see no mention of the grandfather, however, I see he's mentioned in [8] as being in the first orchestra to tour with it.
    • Added unequivocal citation about both Lorenzo and his father, Antonio, playing in the Otello premiere. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • [3]b: OK
  • [3]c: Where does the source mention the Vienna Staatsoper?
  • [3]de: OK
  • [3]f: Article: "His reputation as an accompanist tended to obscure his talents as a symphonic conductor... Barbirolli became very sensitive on this point, and for many years after the war he was reluctant to accompany anyone"; Source: "his skill as an accompanist tended to cloud his talents as a symphonic conductor...made John very sensitive to this issue ever afterwards, and for many years after the war he refused to accompany anyone" I do appreciate that this is attributed, and that there is a direct quote in the middle of it.
    • Here and there in the article I reduced the direct quotations in response to suggestions at peer review. Happy to return the paraphrases to direct quotations if this is preferred. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Oh, those pesky reviewers! They do so ruin articles. DrKiernan (talk) 14:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • [3]gh:OK
  • [8]a: Article: "The following year he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, which he attended from 1912 to 1916, studying harmony, counterpoint and theory under Dr. J. B. McEwen and the cello with Herbert Walenn". ODNB: "The following year he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, which he attended from 1912 to 1916." The Gramophone: "studying harmony, counterpoint and theory under Dr. J. B. McEwen, and the violoncello with Herbert Walenn". The problem with this is that while the Gramophone is attributed, the ODNB is not.
  • [8]b: His playing with the Carl Rosa, in cinemas, in hotels, in restaurants, and in dancehalls is covered; I don't see Bartlett or the four-word quote.
    • As above, added additional citations>
  • [8]c: OK
  • [8]d: OK (though year not given, but I can infer that from [20])
  • [8]ef: OK
I think all but one of these points can readily be covered from available sources, which I will look out. The exception is the quote about playing everywhere but in the street. It's a good quote and I'd like to keep it in, but where did I get it from if not the ODNB? I'll search and report back. Tim riley (talk) 14:09, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Here? (pdf) DrKiernan (talk) 15:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for that! I have a dim memory of another, more expansive source, but the RAM site is splendidly authoritative and will do very well if I can't find the other one among my rough notes. Tim riley (talk) 19:46, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I still can't discover where I got that quote from originally, but it's in the memoirs of JB's widow, Evelyn Rothwell, and I've cited it to that. All other missing refs now in place, I think. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Media review

  • File:Verdi.jpg might not be public domain in the States because of URAA renewal.
    • Does that mean I should use a different image of Verdi? There are plenty to choose from if need be. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • No. I don't think it does, on reflection. Was the work published in 1886? That would make it PD without a doubt. DrKiernan (talk) 14:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure why the copyright registration number is shown at the Library of Congress for File:Arthur Rubinstein 1906.jpg. I presume this is an expired registration?
    • Does this require any action on my part? Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I tried to look that number up, but I just get returns for unrelated matter, which indicates that the registration must be an early one. I think those very early registrations have to be checked by hand in a card index in the Copyright Office in Washington. As it says at the source: Rights assessment is our responsibility. We've assessed as public domain, so we'll stick with that until told otherwise. DrKiernan (talk) 14:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I had a look at the Library of Congress and National Portrait Gallery for clearly free images of Barbirolli without success. Of the two images at LOC, one is an Associated Press photo and the other has no rights information. There are some snapshots from the 1920s at NPG but they look like previously unpublished private photos, so not obviously free. So, one fair-use low-res publicity image is fine.
  • All other files check out. DrKiernan (talk) 13:19, 5 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • All above points now acted on, I think. I hope all is satisfactory. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Support Superlative article; meets all criteria. Minor prose suggestions: I try to avoid using "there" and "here" when referring to places where people were, because if I'm in New York and read "...New York Philharmonic, serving there from 1936 to 1943" it looks a bit off since I'm here not there: "..serving from 1936 to 1943" works just as well. The "thus" in "He later described the experience thus" can also be dropped to tighten the prose. In the sentence "The programme consisted of music by Berlioz, Bax, Mozart and Brahms (the Fourth Symphony)", it looks a little odd that Brahms' work gets a mention (not wikilinked by the way) but not the others. DrKiernan (talk) 17:54, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Further thanks for the support and comments. I am already indebted for all your sourcing and image help above, and now you are kind enough to add your latest thoughts on the prose. Following up your drafting points will be an enjoyable task for tomorrow. Tim riley (talk) 18:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • All three points agreed and acted on. Thank you again! Tim riley (talk) 15:17, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. This is an informative and highly readable article which should grace the home page in both content and style. I have a few queries:

  • I couldn't see any reference to his wife Evelyn's 2002 book 'Life with Glorious John: a portrait of Sir John Barbirolli'. I think it deserves inclusion in the list of sources.
    • I have killed two birds with one stone. My original draft was found deficient in citations, and Lady B's memoirs have been an excellent source for remedying that dereliction. It is, moreover, a charming work, and throws light on several points, not least why Downes was so prejudiced against JB. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Personally, I would like to see a little more shed on his family background. For example, according to Evelyn, both his father and his grandfather played as violinists in the first performance of Otello at La Scala. She says "John often told me how much he learnt from his father about the tempi and interpretation of Verdi's music, and about other Italian composers of opera, including Puccini." Although Barbirolli's mother ("always known as Mémé") came from Archaeon near Bordeaux, they apparently always spoke Venetian in the family.
    • Hmm. I don't know that I want to add much more on family background, for fear of unbalancing the articl. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • A small point: In the fifth paragraph of the 'Hallé orchestra' subsection, the statement "Barbirolli's interest in new music waned in post-war years" seems to me to require some external support. I appreciate the point that the new works programmed by Barbirolli at this stage of his career were written in "a mostly traditional [viz tonal?] style". But so, it could be argued, were those of the composers listed in the third paragraph of the 'New York Philharmonic' subsection. MistyMorn (talk) 15:22, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • A very fair point. I have added a citation from Kennedy (1971). Thank you for your support and for these suggestions. Tim riley (talk) 14:03, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 03:38, 10 February 2012 [8].

Hadji Ali

Nominator(s): Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:18, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because there's presently not enough coverage of regurgitation among our FAs, much less an article on a professional regurgitator. I say "very little" as a hedge: It is possible that there have been others, but I really do think this is the first one. This oversight should not stand. I guess I should also tell you as an aside to the above merits, that this has had a peer review, is a good article and I think it meets the criteria.

Regarding content, two gaps you may note is that there is little on his personal life and little on his years in Europe and elsewhere before he came to the U.S. This is not for lack of trying. I have exhausted every source I could find using every variation of his name's spelling, misspelling, reversal of order, his stage names in both English and in other languages. etc.

This was mostly built from newspaper articles – hundreds I looked at using Newspaperarchive.com. Very few sources go beyond variations on the same two or three paragraph patter about what his vaudeville act consisted of. I've included every pertinent detail I came across and I traveled down every path to locate reliable sources I could think of, including (after the usual Google News archive and book suspects, and magazines with archives such as Time, Life & Variety) looking at German sources such as Die Zeit and Der Spiegel, Italian newspaper archives, expat asian newspapers, etc., as well as asking for help at the Russian Wikiproject (since he performed for the Tsar). Obviously, I am trying to gird against a comprehensiveness objection I foresee as a possibility, but I don't think this can be made significantly more comprehensive.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:18, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done, no comment on comprehensiveness. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Be consistent in whether you include locations for newspapers and for books
  • FN 6: what's a font page?
  • FN 34: what kind of source is this? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • All fixed. I've also made all U.S. state listings more consistent by using their standard abbreviations. Thanks for looking.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:02, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Z. Thanks for stopping by. I don't edit Wikiquote but please feel free to create the page yourself. Regarding the disambiguation I suppose a hatnote could be added to the article on the mosque but I'm not sure it's necessary. Hadji Ali (with the "d") is his common name and there are very few sources that have ever mistakenly spelled it without the "d" when referring to this individual. Regarding a disambiguation page, they are only addressed to ambiguity created by various existing titles that can cause confusion. Even if we add the mosque to the mix, we only have that and Hi Jolly to deal with so hatnotes would be the normal way to go. See generally WP:TWODABS. Regarding creating the suggested redirects, I have done so for the Arabic but I see no need for the others since I think it very unlikely anyone will be looking for this subject by searching for the transliteration.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 08:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: This is an impressive piece of work, given the way that it has had to be pieced together from lots of sources. The prose looks good apart from a couple of quibbles, and there are one or two other points. It is an enjoyable article and I look forward to supporting. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:37, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm not sure that a long list of his stage billings should appear in the first sentence of the lead. Firstly it makes for a distractingly long sentence and secondly I think (unless he was widely known by these names) it would be better kept for later in the lead, or more ideally, the main body.
  • He was widely know by these names, at least in hundreds of advertisements, though commenting on that directly would stray into OR territory--no source I've come across directly says that. I've taken them out of italics and folded them into the body.
  • Also, unless I am missing some strange part of the MoS (which is likely!) why are the names both italicised and contained in quotation marks?
  • See above.
  • "Although never a true headliner…": A little vague: maybe "Although never a true headline act", but it leaves the question of what a headline act is in this instance. To me, it suggests "topping the bill" at a theatre, but I suspect that was not the intention. Needs clearing up. Struck, but see below! --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • A top headlining act is the sense, tweaked to say so.
  • Close repetition of "vaudeville": "…had a dedicated following on the vaudeville circuit in the United States. His vaudeville act was captured…"
  • Rewritten. Although "vaudeville" and "vaudevillian" are now nearby one another, I think the modified forms don't have the same repetitious feel. Better?
  • Not sure about this. After the change above, we now have three words with their root in vaudeville in the first two sentences! I think this is overkill, but I'm afraid I'm not sure of a better word that carries the correct meaning. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC) I'm not too fond of "vaudeville...vaudevillian" but that's just my opinion, so struck. --Sarastro1 (talk) 18:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I removed the first usage; "top headlining act" didn't need the vaudeville modifier.
  • Background: the opening is a little mixed up in my view. It talks about how he discovered his ability, when he explained how he discovered his ability, and only then describes what his "unusual ability" was. Would it be better to begin by describing the ability and then how he discovered it, or even to open with the event by which it was discovered. (Hope this makes sense…) But, given how vague it all is in his own words, maybe the current way is better. Hmmm. Not sure.
  • I have placed a lead-in sentence that makes it less in media res.
  • "A more dramatic version of these events was provided by Ali's Daughter, Almina Ali in an interview in England after his death": May be better with a comma after his daughter's name.
  • Done.
  • Actually, you hadn't, so I did it! Also realised that "Daughter" was capitalised, which I also changed.
  • Oh, this is one of those where I was working in multiple windows and never transferred the edits over. I remember decapitalizing daughter also!
  • "an ability that he continued to develop as he grew older": In the sense that he practised or that he became naturally more accomplished as he got older. The source seems to imply the former but is a little vague.
  • I have tweaked.
  • "who signed him to a contract for music hall performances": Slightly awkward "signed him to a contract"; would "signed him" be better, or change the subject of the sentence and have "Ali signed a contract".
  • I have worried at this but cannot figure out a better way to say it. "Signing someone to a contract" is a stock expression (see e.g., this).
  • OK. I still feel it is awkward but not enough to worry about. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Ali "remained more a sideshow curiosity than a true vaudeville headliner."" Although this has a ref, there should be in-text attribution as well.
  • Done.
  • The way it was phrased was awkward so I replaced it with the name of the author. If anyone comments on explaining who he is (I don't think that is an issue myself), it may be worth recasting the whole sentence. However, I like the link with Judy Garland. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "reportedly 60 to 100 glasses at a time": Reportedly does not sound reliable. Maybe "according to X" may be better.
  • Tweaked.
  • Minor close paraphrasing issue: "he spurted forth the water in a steady stream": Arguably a little too close to the source which says: "Then for nearly a minute he spurts forth the liquid in a steady stream from his lips" (Incidentally, the ref gives the date as December 12 when it was actually 21) I think "spurted forth" is a little too grand anyway.
  • Rewritten.
  • "It is thought that for the nut feat, … For the handkerchief stunt, it was speculated that…" Not too sure here; maybe say who thinks this and who speculated, otherwise it suggests editorial voice.
  • Rewritten with in-text attribution.
  • "At some performances, a panel or "jury" from the audience was invited on stage to verify as best they could, while in close proximity to Ali, that no trick mechanism was being employed: that he was actually swallowing the items in question and delivering them back through acts of regurgitation.": This strikes me as too wordy: maybe "At some performances, a panel or "jury" from the audience was invited on stage to verify as best they could, while in close proximity to Ali, that no trick mechanism was being employed: that he was actually swallowing the items in question and delivering them back through acts of regurgitation regurgitating them."
  • This has been tweaked, though I kept in "jury" because it's replicated in the lead and it gives the sense that they were there to determine legitimacy, not just to observe.
  • "Not all felt the same.": Not all what? Newspapers? (that is the last thing mentioned) The public? Theatre managers?
  • I think you missed how the subject "others" is connected to the immediately proceeding sentence, which reveals that it refers to audience members/the public. I have made it clearer by ending with a colon.
  • I think I may be missing something here. These are the two sentences concerned: "One newspaper reported that Ali's feats, essentially controlled vomiting, were performed in "a manner without the least bit of unpleasantness or anything bordering on repulsiveness."[27] Not all felt the same: at least one of Ali's engagements was cut short once the proprietor realized that the nature of the act "was killing their supper shows". The subject of the first sentence is "one newspaper" and the public aren't mentioned. I think this is easily solved by replacing "all" with "everyone" or "all the public". --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Everyone" works fine for me and I have replaced.
  • Maybe give Houdini's full name and state who he was just in case someone doesn't know.
  • Done.
  • "The abilities of Ali, who was said to have "two stomachs"…": Who said so?
  • Removed. It felt misplaced.
  • "At one of his acts a number of doctors attended and rigorously examined him during the performance.": Surely not while he was performing? And maybe "thoroughly" rather than "rigourously"?
  • I have changed the one word but yes, during the act. I can only reflect what the source says and it does say it was during his performance: "Physicians who have doubted his feats, recently subjected him to a rigid and thorough examination while he was performing..."
  • "They came away satisfied that their doubts that he was actually imbibing the material reported were unfounded, but remained "mystified over his extraordinary performance."" Again wordy, and the quote requires in-text attribution. Maybe "They were satisfied that he was actually imbibing the material, but according to X, remained "mystified over his extraordinary performance."
  • I have pared down.
  • Still requires in text attribution. As it stands, it suggests these are the actual words of the doctors rather than a source. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm missing something. It says, in text, what newspaper it was reported in, the year of the article and and whose opinion it was. Can you explain further how this should be attributed better? The article is by Morris Fishbein, not just attributed to him therein.
    P.S. I just realized didn't make this clear because I failed to place him as the author of the article in the citation. Fixed now.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:49, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we are talking about different parts of the text! The part you are talking about is the possible medical explanation of his tricks. The part I mean is "At one of his acts a number of doctors attended and thoroughly examined him during the performance. They came away satisfied that he was actually imbibing and regurgitating the material and objects as claimed, but remained "mystified over his extraordinary performance."" Which has ref 17. The unattributed part is "...but remained "mystified over his extraordinary performance."": it needs to be clear who wrote those words. It only needs to say "according to X newspaper". --Sarastro1 (talk) 18:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding comprehensiveness, it would be nice to know more about his life outside his act, such as his childhood, family, etc. For example, his daughter appears fully grown early on in the article and we never hear much more about her. As the nominator says, it is light on what he did in Europe. However, given that these details most likely do not exist, and that he was most notable for his charming stage act, I do not think it is a problem that the information is not in the article. The main points of significance all seem to be there.
  • Indeed. As I also said in the nomination, there is little on his personal life. I have found nothing on Almina's mother or anything more on her at all, whether he was married, where he resided. etc. Just nothing. He enjoyed some small fame but I think he was not quite famous enough for background details to have been sought.
  • However... Looking at the sources, some of the claims about what he did such as the tsar seem to come from either him or his daughter. Several things seem to be less than independent. Perhaps the article could make clear which "facts" come from the man himself. It is also interesting that no-one has ever repeated this act, which does beg the question was it even possible and not some elaborate hoax. It would be interesting to cover this, but I imagine nothing really exists except the comment given by David Blane and the contemporary doctors. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:37, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have made it clear that his appearance before the Tsar comes from his own recounting. Regarding it being an elaborate hoax, well it's neither here nor there, but I think that's quite impossible given the way he performed and the observation he allowed. Really, nothing he did is beyond belief (there are other regurgitators btw, even some coming to light now 1 2)—maybe only that he apparently suffered no ill effects from having kerosene in his gut many times per week, albeit for short periods of time.
  • No problems on these last two points; I was merely raising them and saying that I suspect not much can be done. Fair enough on the source of the claims. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comment: It's just about there. There are a couple of final points lurking above on prose and once these are addressed I will be happy to support. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC) There is one remaining issue which we are getting muddled about which I think needs clearing up, but I am happy to support now. --Sarastro1 (talk) 18:35, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks: I checked several of the newspaper sources and apart from one item noted above, no issues were found. --Sarastro1 (talk) 21:40, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the thorough review Sarastro1.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:07, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries; WP:FAU will explain some of them. - Dank (push to talk) 02:48, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for the copyedit! One minor reversion in the lead since I think it affected meaning and I have removed an Oxford comma for consistency since I don't use them. One other thing: I'm not so sure about the change from c. 1888-92 to the median ("c. 1890"). As you note, this is explained later, but I think the original is more precise and works better given the discrepancy described in the note.
  • The source doesn't say that he had Judy Garland proclaim him as her favorite vaudevillian, it just says that he was her favorite vaudevillian. This should be fixed in the lead and below the lead. - Dank (push to talk) 05:43, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • You think there's a material difference? Proclaim means to make known. Barring ESP, how could the author ever state he was her favorite if she didn't state the same? Incidentally, having searched, I discovered that this detail comes from an interview Garland gave to Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show taped and aired on June 24, 1968. I and trying to get access to the clip which appears to be available behind a membership only (not pay) wall. If I do I can expand.
    • I do. To have someone do something is to induce them to do it; the source doesn't say that he induced her to say it. - Dank (push to talk) 04:04, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, I see. Never even occurred to me that's what you meant. Read it again, using having's definition of possessing; something "having" come too pass. Or to make it crystal clear, here the same use in a different context but using a similar sentence construction: Although never considered the most fascinating of physics questions, the cosmological constant problem has been a consistent subject of PhD theses for the past 100 years, even having drawn the attention of Einstein. Hmm. I'm not sure others would misinterpret what I meant the same way so I'll try to think of a change.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:37, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, I have rewritten the two mentions to avoid any ambiguity.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "vaudeville subdivision": probably the wrong word.
  • I have changed to "subgenre".
  • This isn't my area since it concerns sourcing, but why give the daughter's word equal weight in the first note? - Dank (push to talk) 23:21, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here we have a guy about whom sources say where he was born and even his name is not sure and that he was born "around" "c." "ca" 1892, all of which sources seem to be feeding from the same trough in the manner they parrot each other. Meanwhile, close family members normally know each other's ages. If we were forced to list only one age for Ali by our best guess at accuracy from available sources, it's far more likely that Ali's daughter, his constant assistant and translator, knew her father's age when she stated to reporter upon his death in 1937 that "he was only forty-nine!" Fortunately, we do not need to make that decision and can detail the issue as I have.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: very interesting, well-written article. Seeing the work Fuhghettaboutit did on this prompted me to track him down for help on another short quirky piece. I looked over the prose and only have some small suggestions, I could find very little to nitpick about.
  • Could the bit about Blaine be significant enough for the lead?
  • "Ali's act was captured in two films: the 1930 short, Strange as It Seems and Politiquerias (1931), the expanded Spanish language version of Laurel and Hardy's Chickens Come Home." Maybe an "and" before "the"?
  • "Speaking about the democratic nature of the vaudeville performance circuit, Vaudeville's writer and executive producer, Greg Palmer said in reference to Ali, that the film..." Could you try to tighten this part a bit?
  • In the Background section you start three sentences in a row with "Ali", maybe rephrase a bit?
  • "Ali came to the United States with Almina in the mid-1920s where they performed at fairs" Maybe a comma after "mid-1920s"?
  • "in a continuous stream for a sustained period of time sometimes approaching one minute." Maybe a comma after "time"?
  • "with a small flame burning in close proximity." is this the WP:PLUSING construction? Mark Arsten (talk) 02:39, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for looking Mark, good stuff. I have fixed all but the last. It reads fine to me, plus -ing or not. I have tried to think of an alternative but have come up short. Do you have any suggestions?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:21, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would it be possible to just remove "burning"? "A prop was then produced, typically a model castle or house made of metal set on a table, with a small flame in close proximity." Mark Arsten (talk) 04:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't know, it feels like the flame, using that construction, is now some disembodied fire. Anyway, I *think* the point of the plus -ing(amagig) is that the "with" is the part that's seen as the problem. So if the "with" belongs, getting rid of the gerund is removal for removal's sake. Is this really noun plus -ing? Does it actually read poorly to you as is? Rules of thumb are useful but are we talking here about the way this sentence strikes us or just trying to adhere to a rule (which I'm not clear is actually applicable to this use of with).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 05:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, I have recast it, changing the detail slightly with a source that provided it was inside the prop.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:10, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Thanks for putting up with all my nitpicking :) I am impressed at how well done the article is, particularly considering its subject. Having reviewed the changes, I Support on 1a, 1d, 1e, 2a, and 2b. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, I may be getting ahead of things here, but if this is promoted it should be on the short list for April 1's TFA. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:07, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image are unproblematic, captions are fine. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:42, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Nice work! This was very interesting to read. Good luck with the nomination. I made some changes as I was reading. Some other items for your consideration:

  • "Although never a top headlining act" Is the word "top" redundant?
  • The whole phrase is too ambiguous and doesn't quite capture the sense of the source (quoted in the body) which is really about his degree of celebrity. I have changed to "Although never gaining wide fame..."
  • "His fame was as a practitioner of a recognized vaudeville subgenre known as a "regurgitation act", involving the swallowing of material or objects and their regurgitation in various ways." This sentence seems out of place in the first Background para. I would lead up to it in Background, and then explain in closing how the background you've outlined led to his fame.
  • If you read the section again as if this wasn't there I think you'll see that we need some type of introduction as to what he was famous for or the material that follows it lacks context. Specifically, after introducing meager details about his origins (all there is in sources), by necessity it starts with a description of how he learned as a child of his unusual gastric abilities. Without this introductory sentence providing context, the reader is left wondering: "why are we being told of this person's unusual swallowing facility?" etc. I added this in in response to a comment higher on this page stating "the opening is a little mixed up in my view. It talks about how he discovered his ability, when he explained how he discovered his ability, and only then describes what his "unusual ability" was..." I'm not quite sure what path there is to thread between your comment and the other.
  • "Ali came to the United States with Almina in the mid-1920s, where they performed at fairs, carnivals and in vaudeville." Misplaced modifying phrase.
  • I have recast, breaking up the sentence and melding with another.
  • Some of the wikilinks are of low value... peach, mouse, etc.
  • Yeah, I agree there's a bit of overlinking in that section and have removed.
  • Why periods after the attributions in the boxed quotations?
  • I have no idea why I put periods there (all removed).

--Laser brain (talk) 02:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks much Laser brain.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:33, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, looking good as of now. I poked around in some library databases and didn't find any sources you neglected. --Laser brain (talk) 22:20, 31 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source spotcheck: Fuhghettaboutit, have you had a source spotcheck for 1) accuracy in representation of sources, and 2) close paraphrasing in a previous FAC? If so, pls link it; if not, still pending. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:22, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sandy, there is a check above by Sarastro1. --Laser brain (talk) 03:08, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy, this is archive1. There is no prior FAC. Thanks for noticing Laser brain.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:24, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My sincere apologies for missing that, Fuhget; had I seen it, I could have looked into promoting this one, but now I'm resigned, so I can't. Honestly, I was just making one quick last runthrough, to try and not leave so much work for Ucucha. Also, by the way, I know this is archive1-- my query related to any previous FAC of yours. We try to get at least one good spotcheck on every nominator, since we don't have the resources for every nomination. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, you resigned? I do hope that was because you're giving yourself a well deserved break and not in response to the shameful crap I've been seeing about the FAC process (am I a "battleship" or a star whore or something like that). We haven't crossed paths before I don't think, but I am around enough to get an idea of how much you do for featured content. It didn't even occur to me that you might have meant a FAC on a different article. For posterity, I have had one prior FAC: Masako Katsura but I don't think there was any close paraphrasing check in that one.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:25, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I attempted to review this back when it was a Good Article nomination, but was beaten to the punch while I was still reading it (sad face). I've re-read it now that the above feedback has been acted upon and I'm more than happy to support this article. I look forward to a colourful torrent of regurgitation-based FAs. GRAPPLE X 06:58, 8 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Grapple X. Thanks for looking. Yes, I expect we'll soon need a separate heading at WP:FA just for the category.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

One of the notes says that the Nile runs only through Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. That is, of course, wrong, since the Nile (specifically the White Nile) runs through several other African countries, as the Nile article says. Ucucha (talk) 02:33, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Removed the incorrect material. I have left in just the source's characterization, letting it speak for itself with no gloss about whether it's right or wrong.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:22, 10 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 19:44, 4 February 2012 [9].

Baldwin of Forde

Nominator(s): Ealdgyth - Talk 13:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because ... once more, something wicked this way comes... oh, wait. Not so wicked, as Baldwin was not noted for the wickedness of his life or anything exciting like that. Baldwin's a rather common exemplar of the English medieval ecclesiastic - lived his life well in conformity to the expectations, served his king and his church, went on Crusade, got involved in a few disputes but was generally considered a "good egg" by most. Not a saint by any means, but not a bad boy either, Baldwin was an author as well as a cleric. He's had a Good Article review, a very exacting peer review, plus a final polish by Malleus. This is how the article looked when I started editing it, so it's been substantially rewritten and expanded during my time with the article. Note that although I'm participating in the wikicup, and there will probably be a bot slapping a notice about that on this nom, I will not be claiming this article for the competition, as most of the work on it took place prior to 2012. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources and images but no spotchecks. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Exter or Exeter?
  • "From the Conquest to the Death of King John" or "From the Conquest to the Death of John"?
  • Domesday to Magna Carta or Domesday Book to Magna Carta?
  • FN 7 vs 26
  • Be consistent in whether page ranges are abbreviated or not
  • Check for minor inconsistencies like doubled periods
  • Be consistent in whether ISBNs are hyphenated or not
  • Where in Belgium was Sharpe published?
  • Does the Duggan in Further reading not have a first name or initial?
  • Single image is unproblematic. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:08, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed everything but the double period - it's a fault of the template, I'm not going to make the data field inaccurate by not including the period after the initial. Also - Sharpe's Handlist does not give a further location in Belgium other than "Belgium". I gotta say though - asking for all hyphenated or all unhyphenated ISBNs is getting into the range of way out there with consistency - I did it, but only because I was able to - most online book databases do not hyphenate and I'm not going to kill myself to find hyphens. They make it easier for people to read them, that's why I include them, but I'm more inclined to just strip ALL the ISBNs out of the references if I'm going to have to do this every time at FAC. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on the basis of my peer review, here. I raised the question of the appropriateness of the "Legacy" title; there's precious little "legacy" there, the section is mainly a sort of appraisal of his nature (distinguished scholar, gloomy and nervous, sounds familiar). But I couldn't suggest an alternative title so I'm not pressing the point, though if someone can think of something more apposite, that would be small improvement. Brianboulton (talk) 16:56, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't think of one either, Brian. If I had, I'd have gladly changed it (and if anyone comes up with one, please suggest it...) Thanks for the excellent peer review, by the way, and thank you for the review here (also thank you Nikki - it's been a wild couple of days here ... I'm a bit cranky.) Ealdgyth - Talk 17:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm quite nitpicky, so call it even. The reason I asked about Sharpe was because you have another book from the same publisher that does have a more specific location. As to "Legacy", I've seen "Image", "Reception" and "Reputation" used for that type of section, although I'm not sure I'd prefer any of those here. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead with Nikki's excellent suggestion of "Reception" - I've never been totally happy with Legacy either... Ealdgyth - Talk 03:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Another excellent piece of work. Very comprehensive but possible to follow what is going on and no obvious problems with jargon, etc. A few very, very minor points, none of which affect my support. --Sarastro1 (talk) 19:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Minor picky point, but quite a few sentences begin "In 11XX…". Not sure much can be done that is not contrived, but it is slightly repetitive.
  • "is said to have sent Baldwin to Italy to study law.[5] Baldwin was also said to have taught at Exeter, although this is not substantiated by any contemporary record." Fussy point, but who said it? I assumed that it was contemporary "gossip" or hearsay, but it can't be if it is not in the records.
  • "after his father's death": Baldwin's or Bartholemew's?
  • "Eventually all the prominent ecclesiastics and monastic houses of Europe were forced into choosing sides in the dispute.": More of a personal query than anything to change: was it really such a big deal? It seems quite a local affair, even by contemporary standards. --Sarastro1 (talk) 19:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed the second and third points, and on the fourth - yeah, you and I would consider it very minor but it wasn't in the time frame - it engaged most of the western European ecclesiastics at some point or another. The Becket cult was HUGE in medieval Europe - not just in England, but across most of modern France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Scandinavia - and any intimation that the body might be moved was big news. The Christ Church monks were not afraid to use the revenues that came in from the cult to protect their cash cow - at the first sign that they might possibly lose their stranglehold on the cult, they started screaming bloody murder throughout Europe and that usually created quite a ruckus. I haven't really thought that the episode needed much more detail - but yes, it was a big deal that caused quite a lot of grief to Baldwin - and his successor Huber Walter also. Walter had to drag himself before the king a couple of times because relations got so bad with his cathedral chapter (the monks of Christ Church - i.e. the monks who formed the clergy staffing Canterbury Cathedral). Thank you for the review! Ealdgyth - Talk 20:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments reading through now on prose and comprehensiveness....Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:04, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • In the Ecclesiastical career section, I'd swap the third and fourth sentences as the third seems to postdate the fourth (?) - another option is to make the fourth sentence have the pluperfect tense "... 1138 to 1155, had sent Baldwin to Italy to study law".
  • I'm copyediting as I go (please revert if I guff the meaning) - there are alot of "Baldwin"s throughout the text. I am seeing if we can do without a few without losing context.
  • The first three paras in the Writings and studies section all start "Baldwin...", which is a tad repetitive but I am having difficulty thinking of alternatives. One consideration might be to append para 3 (collaborations) onto para 1 (works), and move para 2 (sermons) to after this. Anyway, have a play.
  • I'm in two minds whether the quoted bits in the first two sentences of the Legacy section are worth the quote marks or better reworded without.

Otherwise looking spiffy as usual, eh what? Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:41, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I got the first one, the copyediting looks fine, Malleus fixed the third one, and I think I lean towards the exact quotes for those - there are only three in the section, so rather than tax my poor brain thinking of paraphrases... definitely want to keep the Saladin one at least. Thanks for the review! Ealdgyth - Talk 12:58, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You mention a "FitzNigel" at one point; do you mean "FitzNeal" instead? Ucucha (talk) 23:07, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, they are the same person - some folks use fitzNigel, some use fitzNeal. Do I use both? Ealdgyth - Talk 23:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Another thing: in the "Reputation" section, the sentence about Baldwin's succession seems out of place. Ucucha (talk) 23:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Whacked the fitzNigel and removed the succession info. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:02, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 19:44, 4 February 2012 [10].

Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi

Nominator(s): Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC) and Cla68[reply]

This is the third article on Japanese aircraft carriers that I've written with Cla68. This ship was originally designed as a battlecruiser, but was converted into an aircraft carrier during the mid-1920s after the Washington Naval Treaty limited new capital ship construction in 1922. The ship participated in several iterations of Japan's war with China during the 1930s and was very active in the first part of the Pacific War. She was one of the carriers that conducted the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and supported many of the Japanese attacks on Allied forces and territories through June 1942 when she was sunk during the Battle of Midway. The article received a very thorough MilHist A-class review last October and we're hopeful that not much work remains to pass this FAC. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:07, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk)

  • Good to see you back at FAC, Cla68.
  • I'm confused by the second paragraph of Propulsion.
  • Otherwise, so far so good down to where I stopped in the A-class review, Reconstruction. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 22:10, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:08, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Gardiner and Grey or Gray?
  • Why not include both authors for Hata citations?
  • FN 37: which Prange?
  • FN 41: punctuation
  • Be consistent how citations with multiple non-consecutive pages or ranges are handled, and whether ranges are abbreviated or not
  • FN 44: missing a dash
  • Izawa Yasuho or Yasuho Izawa?
  • Are "Naval Institute Press" and "United States Naval Institute" the same thing?
    • Yes, but the name changed over the decades. They are correct as given in the book.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent in whether ISBNs are hyphenated or not. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:08, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose/detail/structure at this stage

  • No DAB links or EL probs according to the toolbox checkers.
  • Having reviewed and copyedited this at its MilHist ACR, I've gone right through the article and CE'd again as a fair few edits have been made since.
  • No image checks as yet and, although refs look reliable, no spotchecks either -- will do so as/when I can. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Went through each image and licensing looks reasonable to me, however I wouldn't mind an expert double-checking one or two that are scanned from American books but assert Japanese PD without author details, e.g. File:Akagi AA gun position.jpg and File:Akagi Pearl Harbor Second Wave Prep.jpg.
    • Checking over the online sources, there's not much to spotcheck in any case. Knowing the nominators as I do, I'm prepared to AGF on the info presented. However I'm a bit dubious about the Tully website. I can see it's purported to be by someone who's published at least one book, but that doesn't necessarily tell me that the site itself is wholly reliable... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not sure that I understand what your qualms are, Ian, but Tully's written or co-written two books on battles of the Pacific War and he wrote the record of movement that we cite here. It meets all the requirements of a highly reliable source as far as I see.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Read it for clarity and any obvious RW technical issues. Nice article. Two notes, matters of opinion rather than issues, no need to change on my account. In the lead and the last paragraph, is "scuttle" the right word to use for sinking by other ships? The use of "IJN" extensively throughout the article to refer to the Japanese navy for me kept stopping the flow of the reading. Nice article. North8000 (talk) 17:10, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The most common use of scuttle is for a ship to sink itself, but it is also appropriate when another ship of the same nationality/side sinks it to prevent capture, etc. I'll look again at the usage of IJN.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 17:48, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's fairly common in military literature to spell-out the formal title of an organization (Imperial Japanese Navy), then use an acronym (IJN) to refer to it for the rest of the article, book, or essay. I understand that in most other literature, however, using acronyms that way is not necessarily pleasing to the eye. I'm fine with trying to use other words, such as "the Japanese navy", or something like that if you feel it would read better. Cla68 (talk) 05:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, and I don't have much to add. It is very well-written and very interesting. I appreciate the opportunity to read it. I made a few minor changes as I read. My only real beef would be the application of WP:ORDINAL, especially in the World War II section. In the places in the narrative where you are writing "x of these aircraft, x of these other aircraft" and so on, I recommend you always express the numbers as numerals. WP:ORDINAL refers to comparative quantities, but I think it applies here since you are comparing numbers of different kinds of planes.

  • Image review: all images used are in the public domain.

--Laser brain (talk) 01:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for taking the time to read the article, make some improvements, give a recommendation, and provide some suggestions for improvement. Cla68 (talk) 02:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Based on general quality of the article; not review of all FA criteria. North8000 (talk) 02:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support on all criteria except 3, which is covered above. 1a- made some of my own tweaks, but am a fan of it overall. 1b- as far as I can tell (speaking as a Milhist/ship editor), the article does not omit any major facts or events. 1c- I'm sure there's more out there on the Battle of Midway,at least, but P&T's Shattered Sword is the definitive reference on that battle, and the rest fulfills the "representative survey of the relevant literature" requirement. 1d- no POV is jumping out at me. 1e- is stable. 2- has a lead, is sectioned, has consistent citations. 4- ~6,000 words is a tad longer than average (from what I've seen) but is far from atypical. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:50, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 19:44, 4 February 2012 [11].

South American dreadnought race

Nominator(s): Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This article tells the curious story of a dreadnought arms race between Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. In 1907, Brazil changed a previous naval order to include three dreadnoughts – a new design of warships that was much more powerful than any earlier naval vessel. The Argentine government, Brazil's chief rival, had a major problem with that, so they responded by ordering two larger dreadnoughts. Chile, Argentina's rival and major naval competitor in the 1890s, didn't like this new development, so they ordered two super-dreadnoughts. The costs for these ships were staggeringly astronomical. The Argentine ships' original cost was a fifth – that's 20%, folks – of the entire Argentine budget. Making everything worse, later in-service costs would easily add up to more than half the original cost over the first five years. The whole ride came to a crashing halt when WWI hit, which was probably a good thing for the countries involved, but the dreadnoughts received by the countries were used through the Second World War.

I hope you find this topic as interesting as I have. This article, the last in a series on South American dreadnoughts, has been about seven months in the making, and I have received help from many people in crafting it. Lecen bought and provided translations of the chief Portuguese-language book in this area, and I've received copyediting assistance from Dank, John, and Drmies. Fifelfoo validated most of the sources and did a thorough close-plagiarize check, which eventually ended up as a Bugle op-ed. The article went through a Milhist A-class review in June 2011. I'd love to hear any feedback you all have. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I love it, well done for your hard work. I would still like to tinker with some of the language; I don't think "pan out" or "stymied" strike quite the right tone. --John (talk) 10:41, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; I have made some very minor adjustments to the prose and image formatting, and I think I now support. --John (talk) 13:26, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support No qualms here. Buggie111 (talk) 14:34, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I changed a few bits of clunky prose and I'm looking at more. I will relay my further concerns in a bit. Binksternet (talk) 17:59, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The article title first made me think that the ships were raced, you know, a speed trial with a winner declared. This is actually an arms race, so perhaps the article should be moved to South American dreadnought arms race, South American dreadnought purchasing clash, South American dreadnought rivalry or similar. That last one is succinct. Binksternet (talk) 21:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, the article is about an arms race, so it has to be at this title or your first suggestion. I don't see the current title as a major issue, but I'm open to changing the title if other non-milhisters see this the same. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Too easily read wrong: "by passing a large" throws the reader who may at first see "bypassing". Binksternet (talk) 21:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • 1906 twice in the same sentence! The second appearance should be "later the same year" or similar. Binksternet (talk) 21:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've copyedited this bit and must thank you for catching an embarrassing typo (I meant 1905). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • You cannot have a "naval-limiting pact". What is probably intended is "naval-power-limitation pact". Binksternet (talk) 21:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Clear from context: "repeated major alterations" does not need "major" because we already know the keel was ripped up. Binksternet (talk) 21:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The lead section should tell the reader whether any of the South American battleships were in violent action, firing their guns in anger. Binksternet (talk) 21:32, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's really out of scope for the lead, I think, as it would mess with the chronological order and make the paragraphs harder to read. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • The information should be in the article body at least. Binksternet (talk) 14:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • I have a sentence or two on the Revolt of the Lash, though the little gunfire in that is left unstated. The only other extremely violent action was in the 20s when Sao Paulo fired on a rebelling fort. That may be out of scope too, as the race was only from 1904 to 1914, and anything after than is really just an epilogue that rightfully limits itself to potential rekindlings of the naval race. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            • Yes, out of scope. The only relevant gunfire would be one dreadnought in action against another. Binksternet (talk) 23:31, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nearly there I made a couple of tweaks, am curious as to how given the contemporary lack of reliable earthquake prediction technology an earthquake in 1908 would cause a 1907 recession, especially if the 1906 Valparaíso earthquake was not worthy of mention.:) Also there is an aside in the footnotes about an Argentinian policy of being able to fight both Chile and Brazil. Such a policy would probably be worth an earlier mention, especially if they were trying to follow it. It might also be worth mentioning somewhere the size of other Latin American navies. Peru has not always had good relations with Chile and Brazil borders all of them bar Ecuador and Chile. ϢereSpielChequers 21:12, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • He actually says "Chile's entrance into the South American naval race had been deferred because of adverse economic conditions. The collapse of the nitrate market in 1907, and a disastrous earthquake in 1908 had brought on a severe financial depression." but I wonder if we can assume he meant the 1906 quake? It seems obvious what he meant, at least to me. I don't see the footnote you are talking about, only a list of tonnages, and Argentina certainly never had such a policy or they would have gone bankrupt :-) They certainly had to be among the naval powers to compete with the Chilean Navy or the Brazilian Navy, but not both. Other Latin American navies at the time were tiny compared to the three main powers. Peru bought a ridiculously obsolete armored cruiser, Dupuy de Lôme, in 1912, but never took possession of it, so they were left with two new scout cruisers that had been completed in 1906 and 07. By 1914, they had a grand total of two cruisers, one destroyer, two submarines (mostly useless for want of spare parts), and other assorted ancient warships including an 1850-built wooden(!) frigate that was a training ship. Also, Peru is the only other South American navy worthy of being listed by Conway's in the continent's section. A few others are listed at the back of the book, but that's the realm of such powerful countries like Morocco, San Salvador, and Zanzibar. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I wouldn't be so sure that the recession was in 1907, on my reading of that source it may have been, or it could have been a year or so later. Better to leave it undated; Something along the lines of "Due to a recession caused by x in 06 and y in 07 Chile postponed her naval plan till 10."
Re "an honest and respectable Government {{sic}}" Whose sic is this and why?
I can't find the sentence I thought I saw about Argentina, so I'm striking that as a senior moment.
I think you'll find that it might be worth mentioning Peru and specifically the Naval Campaign of the War of the Pacific as part of the background. Your story does start in the 1870s, it even mentions that war, and even if Peru never competed in the naval race afterwards she certainly had a fleet in that war. As for the rest, if they never had significant fleets during this era then it would in my view make sense to say something like: In the decades after the defeat of the Peruvian navy in the war of the Pacific, only three South American countries, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, maintained significant navies.
ϢereSpielChequers 19:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done.
It was for the capitalization of "Government". Too minor to include, or can I make it lowercase as an acceptable typographical change? (based on WP:MOSQUOTE I think it is, but I can revert if necessary)
I'll use Scheina and add this in the next few days! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Added. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:50, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Images
  • Everything else checks out ok. Parsecboy (talk) 21:16, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think I'll have to remove the first and third images. For the second, Argentina's copyright law is rather open, but I'll need to find a place where the image has been published. Thanks Parsec! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I hope you don't mind if I comment this one: this is a photo of the Baron of Rio Branco taken around 1898 during his trip to Europe as the head of a Brazilian diplomatic mission. The identity of the photographer has not survived. However, since he was a professional photographer, I find hardly possible that he may have survived past 1941. The Baron of Rio Branco himself died in 1912, and other members of his generation survived at amost until the 1920s. --Lecen (talk) 18:34, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hmm, we still have to prove that it's PD in the US though, which means a publishing date (ugh). What do you think of me uploading the image here, which is almost certainly an official portrait and covered under commons:Template:PD-Brazil-Gov? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • That's a possibility. Unfortunately, I don't have a book with photos of him during this period, only earlier. There is a great photo of him at Commons with Brazilian President Campo Sales and Argentine President Julio Roca. But I believe it wouldn't be useful, since the photographer is also unknown. --Lecen (talk) 00:42, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Have all the image issues been resolved? Ucucha (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • On an unrelated note to the above, why do you use parenthetical references for the block quotes?
    • Also, wouldn't the Argentine ships Libertad and Independencia be better referred to as coastal defense ships rather than battleships? That's how Conway's 1860-1905 classifies them. Parsecboy (talk) 23:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Chicago 13.68 says "The source of a block quotation is given in parentheses at the end of the quotation and in the same type size."
      • I think they were popularly classified and thought of as battleships at the time, but they were really more like the coast-defense ships of the Nordic countries. I'm fine with them being called either one. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - not enough to oppose over or anything, but I can't help but feel that the current section headings are a bit melodramatic at the expense of encyclopedic-ness. Have you considered alternatives, perhaps "[Start of dreadnought race and ]Brazilian orders", "Argentina and Chile's[/Argentinian and Chilean] dreadnought orders", "Third Brazilian dreadnought" (for the three they correspond to, no suggested changes to the others)? What do you think?
Also, I'm no opponent of non-repeating references in general, but I think the paragraph "At the beginning of the Second World War, ..."'s references get a bit lost because of the blockquote. Might it be a good idea to repeat the references next to note "N" so the reader realises which reference(s) cover that bit? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm trying to show that there were three distinct phases in the race. I have no objection to changing them, though. As for your second point, I think I forgot to add references when I first wrote the section. Whoops. Thanks for pointing this out. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I was caught by surprise here. I wasn't aware that Ed was going to nominate this article so soon. Still, it's one wonderful piece of work and I can guarantee that all information here provided is correct. --Lecen (talk) 18:34, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Lecen! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:40, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:56, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Not sure the formatting used for the blockquote in Response is the best
  • What source was used for the Ships involved table?
    • I originally included footnotes, but they looked ugly and distracted from the main purpose in preview. Most of them are from Conway's. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Perhaps add a note to that effect above or below the table? Nikkimaria (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I've added a note below the table, though w/o page numbers. If anyone really wanted to verify it, they're from the massive lists of statistics in Topliss, Scheina's Naval History appendix, and Scheina's ship statistic tables in Conway's. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Might want to link "New London", as it's a place few will be familiar with
    • It's only there to distinguish from other Day papers, so I feel that it'd be overlinking. Not a very strong feeling though. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Spaced ellipses (. . .) are considered deprecated in favour of unspaced (...)
  • FN 1: date?
    • As in, a specific date for the orthography change? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, I was attempting to refer to an endnote and didn't correct for the titling you used. It's fixed anyways, though. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Be consistent in the titling used for shortened citations - ex. Garrett, Scheina and FN1 vs 83
    • The differences are because Garrett is a journal article by a named author, Scheina is a book by a named author, and En83 is a journal article without a specific author (annoyingly common in the early 1900s). Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I understand why these would be different from each other, but my concern is that they're different from themselves - for example, endnotes 3 and 11 refer to the same source, but one is titled "Beagle Channel," while the other is "Beagle Channel Dispute." Nikkimaria (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Missing bibliographic info for English
  • No citations to "The Brazilian Dreadnoughts." International Marine Engineering
    • Nice catch, I have stuff I can add from the article but apparently never did. Am adding it in now. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Check alphabetization of references list
  • Navy or The Navy? Also, if (Washington) isn't part of the title, why is it included in shortened citations?
    • "The" is generally omitted, so that's fixed. I suppose I don't need the disambiguator in short cites, though... Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Foreign-language sources should be identified as such
  • Chicago does not require noting foreign-language sources if the title is in the original language. --Eisfbnore talk 23:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 142, 149: formatting
    • Fixed.
  • be consistent in how page ranges are notated
    • How so?
  • Almeida or de Almeida?
  • What is FGV? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:56, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that's the literal name of the publisher, although I forgot that the full name is "FGV Editoria". Thanks Nikki, your eagle eyes are always appreciated on my end. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A few initial observations

  • Every one of your online sources that I have checked (about half), and every book that I possess that touches on the topic, capitalises "Dreadnought" as a class of battleship (in the way that, say, "Spitfire" is a class of fighter aircraft). Why have you adopted the lower case form?
  • Sources in foreign languages, such as Acorazado Almirante Latorre's Unidades Navales, should be identified as such.
  • See my response to Nikkimaria's comment above. --Eisfbnore talk 23:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Direct links to external sources should not be in the text (see end of "Catalyst" section).
  • There is a tendency to use citation strings (three, four, five in a row), sometimes to support fairly straightforward factual statements. Examples: "Even the departure of Moreno was marked by mishaps, as the ship sank a barge and ran aground twice.[95][96][97]"; "she was formally purchased on 9 September after the British Cabinet recommended it four days earlier.[76][101][102][103]". This leads to some unnecessary clutter in the texts; I am sure that not all of these citations are necessary.

Brianboulton (talk) 21:32, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    • On your first question, "dreadnought" as a type of battleship (as opposed to pre-dreadnoughts) is frequently lower-case, as it's no more a proper noun than "van" or "truck" are. You may be seeing either references to Dreadnought, or simply people who don't know how proper and common nouns work. Parsecboy (talk) 23:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is a very unsatisfactory answer; please don't try to insult my intelligence. "Dreadnought" is not a general category noun similar to "truck" or "van"; it was an invented name, a nickname, to designate a specific type of warship with enhanced armaments. I have mentioned the parallel with "Spitfire"; another might be the name "Big Bertha" which depicts a type of First World War howitzer. As I have said, "Dreadnought" is capitalised in mainstreamm history books, and in all or nearly all of the online sources you are using. The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary gives "Dreadnought" as the usual form. Are you seriously saying that all these are "simply people who don't know how proper and common nouns work"? There may be a case for using the lower-case form, but I suggest you give a little more thought and reason to your reply; I also await your responses to two other points. Brianboulton (talk) 11:25, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
ngram from books.google.com, definition from Oxford dictionaries, M-W. - Dank (push to talk) 12:57, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Brian, I wasn't insulting your intelligence. Like I said, "dreadnought" is a common noun, like "truck" and "car". The Supermarine Spitfire is a proper noun, because it refers to a specific type of airplane, and is not analogous to "dreadnought", which refers to a general type of warship, the same as "armored cruiser", "destroyer escort", and the like. A more accurate relationship would be "Spitfire is to fighter as HMS Bellerophon is to "dreadnought". As to the other two points, I'll leave those to Ed, whose FAC this is. Parsecboy (talk) 14:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Further hijacking this comment, please review MilHist style guide; perhaps Ed should consider a redirect from South American battleship race? Kirk (talk) 18:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's a tough one, as there was an earlier battleship race between Argentina and Chile in the 1890s (see the background to this article). Perhaps a dab page? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:31, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Per Parceboy, above: "Like I said, dreadnought" is a common noun" is merely your opinion; it does not become fact by reiteration and is disputable. I have referred to several authorities which favour capital D - let me give you another. The Shorter OED gives three definitions for "dreadnought": a heavy overcoat; a fearless person; a class of battleship. It gives the first two with lower case and the third with "D". I won't bother to cite more evidence, though I could. What I want is an answer to my original question: "Why have you adopted the lower case form", especially when sources that you quote capitalise it? Can you, or someone else, please answer this? Brianboulton (talk) 20:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think three people answered you already so I will summarize: dreadnought as a common noun is used in multiple sources cited in this article, its the form used in multiple dictionaries linked by Dank, and its consistent with the project's style guide. Yes, capitalization of military terms is not consistent across all sources but I believe Ed has met the requirements of our project's style guide. Kirk (talk) 21:45, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For example: dreadnought describing the Rio de Janeiro, in Conway's All the World's Ships
Also, I randomly checked 8 books in our library for the term - 3 used 'dreadnought', 4 used 'Dreadnought' and one didn't have the term. Two were books by John Keegan, and each one used a different capitalization so even some authors/editors can't stay consistent! Kirk (talk) 22:40, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I can assure you that the printed Shorter OED does not say what the online version, linked above, says. But let that pass; your answer seems to be that both the lower case and capitalised versions are widely used, and you have come down in favour of the former. That's OK; you could have just said this when I initially asked. There are two other questions (see above) still unanswered (citation strings and in-text external link). I am also doing a prose review, and will post here soon. Brianboulton (talk) 00:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Most of my printed sources use the lowercase 'd'. Most of the online sources in this article are from 1905 to 1914ish, which was possibly before the term came into widespread use as a common noun. The citation strings tend to support different parts of the sentence. To use your first example, the sunken barge, running around once, and running aground twice are all different sources. The in-text external link is there because I don't have newspapers in the bibliography, meaning that readers would have to search for a link in the 150-odd list of citations (for why it's in-text, see my above reply to Parsecboy). Thanks for the review, Brian, and I look forward to your comments on the prose. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that citation strings arise when the facts in a sentence require different citations. The problem can be reduced by bunching; for example, refs 41 to 44 could be bunched into a single citation, which would help to unclutter the text. I will do this for you experimentally; if you don't like it please revert, but you may feel it helps the reader. On the in-text external link, in what way is this different from the several other NYT citations you have? Why is this treated differently? As to my prose comments I will post these to the talkpage, otherwise this page will become unduly congested. Brianboulton (talk) 13:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The only issue I have is with consistency (bunching some together but not all). I could bunch all of them but there's be a bunch of repeated citations. The in-text link arise because Chicago 13.68 says "The source of a block quotation is given in parentheses at the end of the quotation and in the same type size." Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 10:47, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't covered referencing issues and don't know for sure, but there's some inconsistency in your referencing at the end of your block quotes, Ed. Also, I'm perfectly happy to cite Chicago's Chapter 5 on grammar and usage; I can't argue one way or the other for how we treat the other chapters, I haven't kept track. - Dank (push to talk) 17:08, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I used a short cite for the last block quote because the book was used in an earlier block quote. Should I expand it? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 18:59, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Brian, what's your preference? - Dank (push to talk) 19:27, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've expanded them for the moment, at least. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delay in responding. My position is that there should be one consistent referencing style for the article. I fail to see why the citation at the end of the blockquote in the "Catalyst" section is in the form of an external link, when elsewhere there are many standard citations to the New York Times and to other newspapers. Nor do I see a justification for the citations at the ends of the other blockquotes being in non-standard form. These should all be in short citation form, for consistency in accordance with MOS. This is an issue I believe must be addressed before the article is promoted. If you disagree, I suggest you ask Nikkimaria to adjudicate—she is wise on sourcing issues. I must apologise again for not having got very far with my prose review, details posted to the article talkpage. The points I raised there have been properly addressed; I doubt I'll have time to do much more in the course of this review, but would not wish to delay the promotion on that account. Brianboulton (talk) 20:17, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, I've had plenty of delays too. I've been following Chicago almost to the letter (only a couple exceptions e.g. ISBNs, JSTOR #'s, etc. aren't in Chicago, but I feel that they are necessary to fulfill Wikipedia's mission), and the blockquotes follow the style given by that style guide in Chapter 13. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I scanned the delta between the A-review and I can't think of anything new. I'm pleased with the summary table! Kirk (talk) 18:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • So far so good down to where I stopped, Brazil's fade and reemergence. I copyedited this for A-class, but I see there have been over 250 edits since then. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 23:26, 11 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks Dank. Since the ACR I've added a bunch of citations to newspapers and journal articles from the time. Most of the prose should be the same, though. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:30, 12 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Actually, Eagle wasn't flush-decked at all as she had a prominent island. But she was the fastest large hull available to the Brits at that time that didn't require an expensive full-scale reconstruction to convert to an aircraft carrier.
  • What's a shipwright?
  • Why is there a hyphen here: New-York Tribune?
  • What about Argentine post-war naval expansion plans? I know that they received a number of G-class destroyers from the Brits in the late 1930s.
  • Combine cells rather than use ibid. Every cell other than ship and country needs cites.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:43, 13 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed, nice catch.
    • A ship designer.
      • Not quite. Designers were practically management. Explain or link the term.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Found the issue – the source said "Shipwrights" (note the capital letter), so I believe he meant the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 21:49, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • That could well be; all I know is that shipwrights were one of the types of workers building the ships, although I don't know off-hand their specific functions.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • This still needs to be dealt with.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's the name of the paper, see New-York Tribune
      • Wow, I've never seen that spelling before despite a large number of references.
    • They're included, look for "twelve destroyers (the Spanish-built Churruca class and the British-built Mendoza/Buenos Aires classes)" (the latter class is what you are referring to, I believe). The naval program took a long time to complete.
      • Yep, I'd missed the brief Argentine section.
    • I'm not quite sure how to get the row/col spans to work with that... I've included a general citation underneath the table, per Nikki and you. Having notes in the table was really distracting on preview when I first added it. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 09:06, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's easy enough. Add |rowspan=2 in front the cell which will cover both and delete the one that is now redundant. See the history for exactly what I did for this table. I agree that I'm not thrilled with spattering blue numbers over tables to cite everything, but see any of my or Parsecboy's FLCs for commentary why it's necessary. The main issue as you've done it here is that there are no page numbers; nobody wants to thumb through whole books looking to verify individual facts.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:49, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • I didn't delete the redundant lines, hence why my attempt failed (never got past preview!) Thanks Sturm. I'll add page numbers later today or after the blackout. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A number of items listed that are unclear as to whether they've been addressed. Attempting to sort it out, I checked the article and still see spaced ellipses-- not recommended by WP:MOS. Could you please clarify above what is done and not? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:04, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I believe everything has been addressed now. Spaced ellipses were answered above; Chicago recommends them. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 20:33, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is a settled issue on WP, Ed, at FAC and elsewhere. I've changed them to three dots per WP:ELLIPSES. I have no objection if you like Chicago formatting, but you can also add the formatting you like, then self-revert, so that you'll have a version that conforms to Chicago that you can point people to. - Dank (push to talk) 20:35, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The lead says: "Argentina's two dreadnoughts were handed over in 1915, as the United States remained neutral in the opening years of the war." That doesn't make sense without context. Also, the first paragraph of "Historiography" is uncited. Ucucha (talk) 20:06, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delay, I missed this on my watchlist. I've resolved the ambiguity you mention – thanks! I can cite that paragraph if you'd like to challenge the information, but it's really a summation of many of the sources listed in the bibliography, so I'd essentially be citing the entire page range of each source. The sentence I can't cite from the article's references, "General maritime histories on the period (c. 1904–14) avoid the area and focus on the traditional powers, especially the Anglo-German arms race.", is pretty obvious to anyone who has read any popular maritime history book on the 20th century, so I don't think it needs a source. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing that sentence. I'd like to hear some reviewers' opinions on whether or not the historiographical paragraph constitutes original research—I'm not sure. Ucucha (talk) 16:55, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My personal opinion is that it's borderline, but it's just an extension of what I've done for the rest of the article. I'm simply drawing out facts from the various books, just in a different way (not historical facts, but facts from the books themselves). I'd welcome other assessments though, as I can see how others can think it is OR. As far as I know, there is no published historiography of the dreadnought race, even within a larger work; Morgan includes one for the Revolt of the Lash, but for the purposes of historiography, that is an entirely separate event. I may be able to include a bit more from Haag to address some of your concerns, but I'll need time to go back through his article. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The difference is that the books are secondary sources if you use them for facts about the race itself, but primary sources if used for historiographical analysis. Primary sources aren't necessarily unacceptable, though; I'll wait to see what others have to say. Ucucha (talk) 21:50, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I had a comment or two for Ed, and those issues are all addressed. Drmies (talk) 19:50, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. A fascinating article. Very well researched and written, and deserving of promotion. Paul MacDermott (talk) 14:27, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 23:30, 2 February 2012 [12].

Nyon Conference

Nominator(s): Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:53, 25 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that it is th emost thoroughly prepared of my articles to head into the process, which is just as well. Would be great to be in a position to feature it 75 years on, later this year. Has been Milhist A-class reviewed (here) and Dank's given it another look since. I can provide any of the journal articles on request. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:53, 25 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've finally found a picture from the Conference with the possibility of a FUR. Also, I've added and used as supplementary sources articles from The Times and The Manchester Guardian, which should help on coverage but comes as a technical detriment to the copyedit. Apologies to Dank for the non-preferable order of those two things, but they are only minor additions in terms of prose. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:32, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm away from home and don't have my Chamberlain references with me, but I'll do what I can and then doublecheck my Chamberlain bios in ten days. Purely stylistic, but why is Anthony Eden, the four times he is mentioned in the article always referred to by full name and he's linked three of them? Who attacked the German ships? Also, I'm afraid your reference to pirates may confuse the reader, what was really being dealt with was freebooters, no? And our article unrestricted submarine warfare doesn't mention Italy ... Just from a hasty reading, it strikes me you could use more context about European response to the Spanish Civil War ... Gotta catch a plane, more in a day or three.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:34, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've rearranged the first paragraph to more quickly define "piracy" and explain why the term is used. I dealt with the "Eden" problem. - Dank (push to talk) 20:44, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a sentence concerning "more context about European response to the Spanish Civil War" - namely pointing out Soviet intervention on the one hand, Italian and German on the other (the subtleties of the French response not suited to such a brief mention). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:09, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer, having reviewed the changes made since I copyedited this last week (it was a request at WP:FACG). These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 20:45, 26 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:25, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Check formatting of quotes within quotes in titles
  • The Guardian didn't move to London until 1964
  • Be consistent in how editions are notated. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:25, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've corrected numbers 2 and 3, could you clarify which references you mean for #1? I've only found one to which this applies – "A Conditional Refusal: "Absolute Parity" Needed". Thanks, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:08, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I seem to recall there having been two, but can't locate another, so I'll say just the one you mention. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:29, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done - well, I think you meant using single quotes instead of double - if so, that's done. Think it's just spotchecks and image review to do now. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:38, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment WP:NBSP—I fixed some of them, please do the rest. --Z 04:34, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done, I think. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: although I am an entrant in this year's Wikicup, I will not be entering this nomination. I may, if this nomination shows that significant development is necessary, enter this article's hypothetical second nomination. But I hope it does not come to that. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:09, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Article does not seem ready, presentation is confusing. I prepared specific comments for the first two sections, but it's present throughout. Suggest some work be done. Not certain it can be done during the course of this FAC.
Let me know of improvements, please.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:34, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
[A lot of comments archived to talk, may thanks to Wehwalt for his patience and attention to detail. I do so as to not put off further reviewers. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)][reply]
I think that's all, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:58, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've read through your comments. If I don't reply soon, it will be because I accept your answer; I will only mention specific things.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:36, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support I have not checked sources or images; content with other things and checks with my own knowledge of Chamberlain's early foreign policy. I would get rid of the three red links, especially the one that includes the word "Admiral" as part of the name (good thing he went into the Navy, if that's really part of his name and a deed poll wasn't involved). Well done. No one can say I haven't put you through the wringer.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:49, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The "Admiral" link was an error, which I've fixed. The other two are in my opinion sufficiently defensible now that that one has been fixed. 17:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

One comment taken from above, archived, then reposted just to reply to in the sake of completeness:

  • "Both countries would patrol the high seas and territorial waters of signatory countries." In the Mediterranean?"
I assume your question is "There were high seas in the Mediterranean?". If so, yes - the source is clear - and in other work I've read that territorial waters have been massively enlarged since then in terms of nautical miles from the coast.
No, I understand that. I mean, were non-Mediterranean territorial waters patrolled? Say Atlantic France near Spain?

It's good question, but one which I can answer on examination of the treaty itself: no, they weren't included. Spanish territorial waters weren't party to the agreement, because Spain wasn't, so I can only assume that no attacks happened on the high seas in the Atlantic (where operation was more difficult because of sea conditions, one might guess). Added "in the Mediterranean" as suggested. Thanks for clearing that up. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:20, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a problem. Most books rush past this in the hurry to get to Munich. Very interesting to hear more about it. If I have anything else, I'll take it to article talk.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:30, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'll also keep this on my watchlist.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:07, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • At the size used, about half of the notations on the map are illegible. Would it be possible to increase the font size used for notations, or increase the size of the map?
  • File:British_delegation_at_the_Nyon_Conference.png: who holds copyright to this image? The Times, the photographer...?
  • File:BlankMap-Europe_no_boundaries.svg: on what source or data set is this image based? Nikkimaria (talk) 19:44, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm doing a new version of the map off a different source. For #2, it doesn't mention an individual copyright on the page (no copyright notice of any kind). If there's a specific photographer-newspaper contract, it isn't noted. That's why I used fair-use and not attempt a corporate copyright approach. Should be fine per WP:NFCC number 10: "Identification of the source of the material, supplemented, where possible, with information about the artist, publisher and copyright holder" (my emphasis), unless there's some FA-specific rule? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:43, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Hm. There's no FAC-specific requirement above and beyond NFC, but I think you need to reconsider the copyright tag used for that image (and most of the non-free tags indicate that copyright info is required, so if it actually isn't those should be amended; that's not really in the purview of this review, though). Nikkimaria (talk) 20:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Changed. This one says "This work is copyrighted (or assumed to be copyrighted) and unlicensed." thereby implying that the exact copyright holder may not have been identified. Thanks, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:11, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Map replaced with a differently sourced map, with clearer provenance, and larger labels. Is that better? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 22:05, 9 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support after the copyedits and tweaks. Still would like to know what the British ambassador/whatever was protesting... Ealdgyth - Talk 16:19, 23 January 2012 (UTC)Oppose for now' Comment - review incoming, as a heads up to the delegates. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:57, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lead:
    • "The conference was convened in part because Italy had been carrying out unrestricted submarine warfare, although the final conference agreement did not accuse Italy directly; instead, the attacks were referred to as "piracy" by an unidentified body. It was designed to strengthen non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War. Italy was not officially at war, nor did any submarine identify itself." I think this would read better with the last sentence shifted before the sentence beginning "It was designed..." so something like "The conference was convened in part because Italy had been carrying out unrestricted submarine warfare, although the final conference agreement did not accuse Italy directly; instead, the attacks were referred to as "piracy" by an unidentified body. Italy was not officially at war, nor did any submarine identify itself. The conference was designed to strengthen non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War."
    • Why is submarine linked in the second paragraph when it's already used in the first paragraph? And really, do any readers not know what a submarine is? Same on why is Italy linked in the second paragraph when it's mentioned in the first paragraph?
  • Context:
    • "aimed at preventing a proxy war – with" I think you mean "aimed at preventing the proxy war – with" as you are directly referring to one specific proxy war.
      • you are clearly referring to a specific proxy war though - there is definitely one meant with this statement, because you directly then mention the specific belligerents in the following phrase. This one isn't a deal breaker - but it's just an odd phrasing considering the direct mention of specifics later in the sentence.
    • "An Anglo-Italian "Gentleman's Agreement" was signed on 2 January 1937, with each party respecting the rights of the other in the Mediterranean." I'm unclear on what this bit of information has to do with the preceding and succeeding sentences. It's disjointed and lacking context.
        • Perhaps "Previously, an Anglo-Italian "Gentleman's Agreement" was signed on 2 January 1937, with each party respecting the rights of the other in the Mediterranean." and then explain what problem this agreement was meant to solve.
    • "In May 1937, Neville Chamberlain succeeded Stanley Baldwin as Prime Minister, and adopted a new policy of dealing directly with Germany and Italy." Suggest linking Prime Minster to the correct national article and adding a bit of context like so: "In May 1937, Neville Chamberlain succeeded Stanley Baldwin as British Prime Minister, and adopted a new policy of dealing directly with Germany and Italy."
    • "favouring a significant control effort as the best solution" - jargon - I have NO idea what this means.
    • "As suspected by the other powers, Italy was behind some of these attacks." this implies that it is now known that Italy was behind the attacks but there was no proof at the time. Is this the case? If so, when did it become proven?
    • "...the Italian leadership had ordered the commencement of unrestricted submarine warfare, known internationally as a campaign of piracy without reference to Italy." Huh? I am totally lost with that last phrase - it makes no sense in connection with the forgoing.
      • Okay, better but still a bit confusing ... "... the Italian leadership had ordered the commencement of unrestricted submarine warfare, referred to in discussion as a campaign of piracy without mention of Italy." which discussions? Prior to the conference? at the conference?
    • "Whilst officially being at peace,[12] the Italian leadership had ordered the commencement of unrestricted submarine warfare, known internationally as a campaign of piracy without reference to Italy.[11] These plans would be the basis for a Mediterranean meeting, suggested by French Foreign Minister Yvon Delbos.[11]" - really - no need to cite every sentence with the same exact citation.
    • "The British representative in Rome protested to the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs." protested what? the attack? And what did the Italians do in response?
      • Still not clear what he was protesting though?
Okay, I'm only two paragraphs into the first section - this is a lot of context missing and prose that's hard to decipher. Normally I'd oppose - but I see you did have a peer review. I'll oppose for now and put the rest of my comments on the talk page of the FAC - so as not to bog this down. I do think you deserve a full review but this needs some work before it's up to FA standards for non-specialists. The rest of this will be on the talk page. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Lead changes made, with the submarine link moved but retained. The reader could well want more context on that. Will see to the rest shortly. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"aimed at preventing a proxy war" ~ I'm afraid I don't see how "the" makes sense. "Proxy war" is a general term and does not refer to one in particular.
"Gentlemen's Agreement" ~ those three consecutive sentences contextualise the following paragraphs (as suggested in this FAC) and refer to Anglo-Italian relations. THe contextualising has to start somewhere - do you have some suggestions of how it could be made less "disjoint"? It has to come before the chronologically later change of PM.
Linked "British Prime Minister".
"significant control effort" ~ reworded;
"Italy was behind some of these attacks" ~ 1950s or so with the publication of Ciano's (Italian foreign minister) diaries, apparently. So after the war. It would be exceptional to mention the source where it is regarded as true; indeed, I reference it to where I got it and not Ciano's diaries, which I haven't seen. The British had their evidence at the time, presumably other people did. Do you suggest altering anything?
"without reference to Italy" ~ well, I've reworded it a bit. Does it need to be clearer, if so, could you articulate your difficulty? Is that it appears to contradict something in particular? We've been over the issue a few times before at ACR and FAC - it is counter-intuitive, but I am trying to state the facts without editorialising, which is challenging.
"Whilst officially being at peace" ~ the first clause is referenced to [12], and it's my standard practice to therefore reference the rest of the sentence with the appropriate reference because otherwise the reader might think that [12] referenced the whole sentence. You mention two consecutive sentences with the same end reference, are there any more examples without my point applying?
"The British representative in Rome" ~ added "but without response". The source says "but 'had been smoothly brushed aside'" quoting one of the people at the meeting's diary.
Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:11, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In my mind, one "prevents a war between France and Germany", to use a simpler example, rather than "the war".
Anyway, (1) I've mentioned the aim of the Gentleman's agreement, at least in its simplest formulation; "which discussions" ~ all discussions, what changes do you suggest?; Added that the protest was at the attack - is this specific enough? I've noted the points you've put on this FAC's talk page, and will respond there. Thanks, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:57, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Question: are any of those watching or passing by this review prepared to do a spotcheck? I can provide the PDFs, it should be straight forward. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:36, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks. "Barbarous" is a direct quote from the source and should be noted as such; other than that, spotchecks of 4 sources found no issues. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Reworded - normally throwing the thesaurus at something wouldn't help with CP, but I think it's OK for a single word. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prose looks ok. A few repeat links I've fixed. Over-referencing is a problem. For example, in the para above Aftermath, 36, 36 in the same sentence! I see 32, 32, 32 above that. Lots of close successive repetitions of ref tags could be looked at with a view to trimming a few. Tony (talk) 06:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Removed a few repetitions. Were there any more you think are problematic? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 23:24, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This sentence needs to have its grammar fixed: "In the United Kingdom, Eden noted that the savageness of submarine attacks, that attacks on submarines would be restricted to suitably extreme circumstances, and that the two parties in the war would still not be able to engage neutral vessels." The article says that the Republicans were unhappy that belligerent rights were not granted to the Nationalists; are you sure that's correct? Ucucha (talk) 21:36, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully fixed the grammar in that sentence. As far as belligerent rights, the article notes above that that "Italy continued to request that belligerent rights be given to the Nationalists, so that Republicans and Nationalists would both gain the right to search vessels for contraband" which gives some indication why the Republicans wanted the Nationalists given rights - but actually, this involved both sides getting rights (there being no such things a war with one party) so I've tweaked the article to say this. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 21:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that makes more sense. Ucucha (talk) 22:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ucucha 23:30, 2 February 2012 [13].

Russell T Davies

Nominator(s): Sceptre (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A third FAC in as many months for this article, after the previous two closed with minimal feedback. I've been working on this article for the past year or so and I believe that it's of a good enough quality to gain that all-elusive golden star. Sceptre (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Bod's comments
    • Section: Children's Television Career, para 3. Without going into detail it would be good to mention why BBC Manchester was 'not allowed' to do drama. If it's a BBC Guideline just add "due to BBC guidelines" or something similarly brief. Otherwise it looks a bit mysterious.
    • Section: Adult Television career, para 2. Article says "He let his contract with Granada expire and pitched a new early-evening soap opera to Channel 4, RU, created by Bill Moffat, father of Press Gang co-creator Steven Moffat, and co-written by him and Paul Cornell." It leaves me wondering why Bill Moffat didn't pitch it since he created it? And when it says "co-written by him" is the 'him' Bill Moffat, Steven Moffat or R T Davies? I assume it's Davies but I think the sentence needs to be re-written for clarity.
    • Section: Adult Television career, para 5. Article says he almost died from an overdose. The context suggests it was a suicide attempt but the reader is left wondering. Is it known? If so, it should be made plain rather than vague. As it stands it is even open to conjecture that someone poisoned him since it doesn't say he administered the overdose.
    • Section: Queer As Folk, para 2 (excluding quote): article says "The eight forty-minute episodes emulated experiences from his social life and includes an episode where the minor character Phil Delaney (Jason Merrells) succumbs to his excesses and dies unnoticed by his social circle." I feel 'succumbs to his excesses' is vague. Given the context and what the article has informed us of thus far, I assume it's a drug overdose. But some people might wonder if "sexual excesses" are being referred to here. On the other hand, perhaps it's drink? We have no way of knowing for sure. So I'd be glad if it were just spelled out for us. --bodnotbod (talk) 15:58, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • In order:
      • It seems to be an internal thing, looking at Aldridge/Murray.
      • Moffat, Cornell, and Davies pitched it together with Press Gang producer Sandra Hastie.
      • As far as I can tell, it was accidental (he was with a friend, probably drank too much, and had to be hospitalised, with the existential crisis coming after. The drug isn't mentioned in Aldridge/Murray.
      • In the show, it's cocaine. Sceptre (talk) 16:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • All of these points have been clarified. Sceptre (talk) 16:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I'm not sure the quotes that begin some of the subsections really add anything to the article. The ones from Queer as Folk and Doctor Who in particular are very long, and just consist of a random line of dialogue from the series which doesn't really tell us anything the article doesn't (namely, that the show has a frank approach to sexuality and that the main character is quite alien respectively). I couldn't find anything about this in the previous FACs or peer reviews, but if this has come up before then fair enough (As a sidenote, they're all referenced except for The Second Coming one, which is inconsistent). One other point: the image of the protest from Bob and Rose doesn't really resemble the real-life photo at all - certainly not enough to warrant a side-by-side comparison (which also makes the fair use rationale a bit dodgy). Would it be possible to get a clearer screen grab, with something more than a tangle of people and a tiny slice of a bus? Smurrayinchester 01:00, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Eh, you're probably right. When it was smaller, they would've added something, but they're just adding to the page size unnecessarily. On the Bob and Rose image: IIRC, there's a very similar shot a few seconds earlier which'll work better. I'll see if I can get a screengrab from the DVD... Sceptre (talk) 01:09, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Beyond my earlier comments, the article looks great. Smurrayinchester 13:40, 21 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment: I'm somewhat concerned how heavily RTD's life story rests on the Aldridge & Murray source. I'm not saying the article shouldn't do that, I merely pose the question. Is this acceptable? Do we have any guidelines on this matter? I asked the Foundation mailing list about it and didn't get many replies but one person said that one thing to ask is "would the article put someone off buying the original book?" It's impossible for me to really answer that without myself buying the book and making a judgement having read it. What do others think? By the way, I realise this will cause misery for the person(s) who has/have gone to great trouble to create/improve the article (and I think the article is excellent) so I'm genuinely sorry for that. But it's a valid concern, I think and I would really need this question to be considered before I can offer my support for promotion. --bodnotbod (talk) 11:50, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]


  • Bod's review of article versus featured article criteria
    • Criteria 1a: well written (its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard)
      • Excellent - I found it to be so. I do have some interest in this subject so I'd find it more interesting than someone stumbling on it by accident but the article drew me in and I wasn't at any point cursing it for length or bored. I didn't notice any clangers in sentence construction or anything like that.
    • Criteria 1b: comprehensive (it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context)
      • Excellent - I know a bit about RTD and didn't notice anything missing. It covers his non-Doctor Who work in detail, which is good to see.
    • Criteria 1c well-researched (it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate)
      • Comment - This brings us back to the Aldridge & Murray question as outlined above this review: ie, can one source ever be said to be a 'representative survey'?
    • Criteria 1d: neutral (it presents views fairly and without bias)
      • Good - It doesn't give us any criticisms of RTD's work, focusing on praise alone. I wouldn't block promotion on that score, though. Article provides criticism of the work as well as praise.
    • Criteria 1e: stable (it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process)
      • Excellent - Looks like Sceptre has been looking after the article for the last few months. No sign of any combat (I looked back as far as August).
    • Criteria 2: It follows the style guidelines
      • I think so: I'm not a Manual of Style expert but I'm happy with it.
    • Criteria 2a: a lead (a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections)
      • Excellent - covers all the ground briefly.
    • Criteria 2b: appropriate structure (a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents)
      • Excellent - his different shows make up most of the contents links, which seems a good way to let people navigate if they don't want to read the whole article.
    • Criteria 2c: consistent citations.
      • I think so - but I'm not really brilliant on our referencing styles. But I can say that all information is referenced.
    • Criteria 3: Media (It has images and other media where appropriate, with succinct captions, and acceptable copyright status. Images included follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.
      • Someone else usually vets all FACs for image rights - but I'm happy with the images as illustrations of the subject.
    • Criteria 4: Length. (It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail).
      • Excellent - I didn't notice any points where it went into too much detail but nor did I feel short-changed. Seemed very well-rounded to me.
    • '''OVERALL JUDGEMENT''' : I'm happy to support as a FA provided there is consensus amongst other reviewers that Aldridge & Murray being so extensively used is not in breach of any guidelines we have or a problem for FA status. I've read Sceptre's comments on Aldridge & Murray below but I would like to see more input on it from others. -- bodnotbod (talk) 14:28, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • NOTE TO SELF: In the mess of unnecessary bolding above, a support is buried. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:54, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Aldridge/Murray itself uses a lot of sources dating all the way back to 1987, and the sources do become more frequent post-Queer as Folk. I could, in theory, use those sources instead of the book, but I'd still be using the book anyway as it's more detailed than those sources. It's the problem with fame coming gradually to most people: I dare say that, without the book, Revelations, for example, would've faded into obscurity. I would say that it (or any decent biography) would be considered a representative survey of the available sources, as it both uses most sources available between '87 and '08, and is one of the only sources I've found to cover his career in between Century Falls and Queer as Folk. I don't think it would put people off buying the book, though; there's a lot of detail in the book I considered incidental to a Wikipedia biography.
      • OK. I will say no more on it. I would be interested to hear other's views. --bodnotbod (talk) 14:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Re: criticism: I feel that the article does mention criticism where it's balanced: e.g. the Queer as Folk section mentions the backlash from a lot of people due to how it handled its subject matter (although, really, what did they expect from a Channel 4 show?). However, among actual critics and the general public, Davies has always been mediocre at worst; even "Love & Monsters", as the article points out, was only marginally worse-than-average, even though I personally think it's a terrible episode. There is the infamous "gay agenda" criticism, but it's never been levied by reliable sources, and both you and I know it's just homophobic ranting. Sceptre (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, you're right. My comment was unfair and I have changed it. --bodnotbod (talk) 14:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and Comment: The subtitle "Sources" should be renamed to "Bibliography" and that of {{Reflist}} should be "Footnotes". And footnotes must come BEFORE the bibliography. Good article overall. --Z 05:36, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Per WP:LAYOUT, the use of "Bibliography" is discouraged as it is ambiguous. However, you're right about the general/specific order. Sceptre (talk) 16:28, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The link for Classics is misleading. My understanding is that the subject is the study of Ancient Greek and/or Latin and the associate cultures, whereas what you link to is basically Eng Lit.
  • In Queer as Folk section, you use "portrayed" twice in one sentence
  • Second, done. First, I'll double check when I get upstairs in between Doctor Who and Corrie :) Sceptre (talk) 19:08, 25 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hey: it's ambiguous, but I'm assuming they are English lit teachers. Sceptre (talk) 16:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see an image review and a source spotcheck on this article. Ucucha (talk) 11:09, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Captions that are not complete sentences should not end in periods
  • File:Bob_and_Rose_Section_28_protest.jpg: who holds copyright to this image? Nikkimaria (talk) 04:59, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi: could you tell me which captions in particular should be edited? I could only think of the infobox caption.
    • I believe the copyright would be held by ITV, as the airing channel. I've edited the image's description to specify the producer and publisher. Sceptre (talk) 06:00, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments weighty tome, good work. A few technical comments:

  • Is there a reason why "notable awards" are in bold in the infobox?
  • "resulted in a " clarify it was his mother that had that issue, not him.
  • "English Literature" -> "English literature".
  • "an Oxbridge university" well that's either Oxford or Cambridge, so why not just say that?
  • We call "Why Don't You...?" just "Why Don't You?". Is there a reason for your use of the ellipsis?
  • "Why Don't You...?.[7]" double full stop warning.
  • Do you really mean to link Bill Moffat?
  • Anthony Cotton has no h in his Antony.
  • You've linked McGuffin then Easter-egg linked it in the next section, I wouldn't do that.
  • Zeta Jones is hyphenated.
  • "Bank Holiday" is just "bank holiday".
  • You link "dénouement" the second time you use it, not the first.
  • Tables don't meet MOS:DTT for accessibility.
  • Some refs end in a full stop, others don't, is there a reason for that?

The Rambling Man (talk) 20:42, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Heya:
    • It's a straight transclusion of {{Awards}}.
    • Reworded.
    • Done (although I should point out it's probably the name of the course)
      • Well if the source backs it up then fine, but Eng. lit is just Eng. lit where I'm from! The Rambling Man (talk) 19:57, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't have the book on me to see if he was fine with either, so I'm going to agree and specified.
    • Removed the ellipsis. I initially used it as it was a contraction of the show's full name; it may have been formatted that way in Aldridge/Murray too.
    • I can find two instances where a question mark is followed by a period, but the question mark is part of the show's title. I'll happily change it if I can be sure it'd be grammatically correct to do so.
    • I didn't. I assumed that, as the creator of Press Gang, he would have his own article.
    • Done.
    • Done.
    • Done.
    • Done.
    • It's actually the fourth. Linked on first instance.
    • Replaced {{y}} for {{yes}}, which I believe is the main point of contention.
  • {{harvnb}} doesn't come with a period on the end. Seeing as it'd be about sixty or seventy citations to add full stops to, I'll do it when I wake up this afternoon; I've been up most of the night in any case. Sceptre (talk) 05:26, 19 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: spotcheck of sources still pending. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:55, 23 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotcheck of all online sources (50/182)

  1. 103) Article: "Ian Berriman of science fiction magazine SFX gave the book five stars and wrote that it was the only book necessary to gain a knowledge of the show's production and secrets."
    Source: "You can douse all the other books about new Who in lighter fuel and spark up your Zippo – this is all you need. It’s the only one that opens a door into the brain of the series’ showrunner." Not in the source.
  2. 130) Article: "His most prolific cliffhanger was in the script of "The Stolen Earth", which created an unprecedented amount of interest in the show."
    Source: "More than 10million viewers are expected for tonight's finale of the latest Dr Who series amid anguished debate over whether David Tennant's Time Lord will be killed off." Does not say unprecedented in this source, would constitute OR.
  3. 135) Article: "The world without the Doctor creates a dystopia which he uses to provide a commentary on Nazi-esque fascism."
    This sentence is cited twice, thus this may not be a problem, but the internet link is to a script of the show; if the other reference does not explicitly state that it is a commentary on fascism, it could constitute OR.
  4. 136) Article: "Davies generally tries to make his scripts "detailed, but quite succinct", and eschews the practice of long character and set descriptions; instead, he limits himself to only three adjectives to describe a character and two lines to describe a set to allow the dialogue to describe the story instead."
    Source: "Really quite detailed, but very succinct." Also, I think "the practice" is unnecessary and not really talked about, more talk about what he does.
  5. 139) Article: "Torchwood also tackles LGBT themes by subverting stereotypes and exploring the characters' sexualities"
    Source says nothing about stereotypes; closest it gets is "I want to knock down the barriers so we can't define which of the characters is gay."
  6. 142, 145, 147, 149, 153, 154 (all are links to BAFTA site) dead links

Recommend further source review of printed materials --ClayClayClay 08:47, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

    • Hey:
      • Changed.
      • Changed.
      • The line "That's what they called him last time" is a direct reference to the Holocaust (although that can be inferred without RSes—Rusty was never that good with allegory—the magazine does support the assertion).
      • Changed.
    • I'm going to have a closer look at the source to see exactly what he says; I believe there's some words in the interview to the effect that h*e wanted to prevent people from thinking "oh, this character is gay and he'll only sleep with men", to which I can't see any other interpretation other than he wanted to subvert stereotypes.
      • I'll fix that momentarily.
    • I'll pop back in an hour or so, which should give me time to do the rest. Sceptre (talk) 17:34, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Struck through my previous comments - all have been taken care of. I especially liked what you did with the AfterElton reference and expanding its coverage a bit. One question now, unrelated to spotchecking: did you mean to remove the Recognition section header? ClayClayClay 02:05, 29 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't mean to do that; I think it's something to do with a JS tool... fixed, in any case. Sceptre (talk) 18:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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