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== September 2009 ==
== September 2009 ==
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fredonian Rebellion/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chinese classifier/archive2}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cosmo Gordon Lang/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ravenloft (module)/archive3}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Yukon Quest/archive3}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/California's 12th congressional district election, 1946/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turok: Dinosaur Hunter/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Blackburn Olympic F.C./archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chicado V/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Chicado V/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tom Swift/archive1}}
{{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tom Swift/archive1}}

Revision as of 22:53, 6 September 2009

September 2009

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 SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [1].

Fredonian Rebellion

Nominator(s): Karanacs (talk) 22:25, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Have you ever been tempted to personally secede from your country? Probably. Most of us don't actually do this, because the end result would be anarchy (imagine having to show a passport to go visit your next-door neighbor!). In 1826, one Texas man did declare his land to be a new republic, and he convinced 30 other settlers to join him. He even signed a treaty with the Cherokee and designed his own flag. It was a pretty half-hearted rebellion, but it had some amazingly long-term consequences—it was the precursor to the Texas Revolution a decade later. I hope you enjoy this latest installation of crazy Texas antics (seriously, HOW did these people win a revolution?), and I hope you find no problems with the article; if you do, I will be happy to take a look. Karanacs (talk) 22:25, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have no knowledge of the subject matter, but after a lit search am wondering why none of the following sources are cited in the article: Sasata (talk) 00:01, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Jack Jackson (2005). Indian Agent: Peter Ellis Bean in Mexican Texas. ISBN=978-1585444441. Chapter 5 = "The Fredonian Rebellion". pp. 61–76.
  • Eugene C. Barker (1925). The Life of Stephen F. Austin, Founder of Texas, 1793–1836. Dallas: Cokesbury Press. 551 pp.
  • Carlos E. Castaneda. (1950). The Fight for Freedom, 1810–1836. Austin, Texas: Von Boeckmann-Jones Co. 384 pp.
  • Richard Drinnon (1972). White Savage; the case of John Dunn Hunter. New York: Schocken Books. 282 pp.
  • Richard Drinnon (1975). "The Metaphysics of Empire-Building: American Imperialism in the Age of Jefferson and Monroe". The Massachusetts Review 16(4):666–688
  • Edmund Morris Parsons. (1967). "The Fredonian Rebellion". Texana 5(1):11–52
  • Hodding Carter. (1971). Doomed road of empire: The Spanish trail of conquest (The American trails series). McGraw-Hill. 407 pp.
  • The abstract of one source I see claims this about Humphrey Jackson (1784-1833): "As militia officer he helped to put down the Fredonian Rebellion." However, his name isn't mentioned in the article. Source: Andrew Forest Muir. (1965). Humphrey Jackson, alcalde of San Jacinto." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 68(3):361–365.
Thanks for checking out the sources! From a quick review, the following sources are not appropriate:
  • Life of Stephen F. Austin - that is a very old biography (there are more recent, better ones), and this incident was extremely minor in Austin's life. It would rate a mention, yes, but not enough discussion to add anything to the article.
  • The Castaneda book is an overview of Mexican Texas; the Davis book I cite is a more recent (and better received) analysis of the same period.
  • The Carter book is primarily concerned with Spanish rule, which ended before the events of this article took place.
  • The Jackson source would be too specific - he was one of 250 in Austin's colony who volunteered to help, and none of them actually fought. (see also [2])
I'll check out the others tomorrow and see if they would be useful.

Karanacs (talk) 02:25, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My library had a copy of the Peter Ellis bean book, and I've added a few details from it.[3] The book added nothing new to the analysis of the impact of the event. I have not been able to track down the other sources, but I am fairly confident that they would not have more to add. Karanacs (talk) 15:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To be thorough, I consulted Gregg Cantrell's recent biography of Stephen F. Austin. One page was devoted to the Fredonian Rebellion, and all applicable information was already covered by other sources cited in this article. Karanacs (talk) 17:16, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I made some corrections, hope I didn't mess anything up. Article looks good, expect for the following sentence: "After Chaplin's victory, many settlers alleging vote-stacking in an appeal to Juan Antonio Saucedo, the political chief of the Department of Bexar." Wasn't 100% sure if "alleged" was to be substituted in there. Also one small question about "...in April 1827 the Towakoni and Waco sued for peace." Could you clarify "sued"... did the Indians take them to court? Sasata (talk) 18:03, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This is a terrific article on a very interesting piece of US History. It is thoroughly researched using the most scholarly sources on the subject matter. I do not see the need to cite less scholarly sources or sources of equal scholarship when they say the same thing anyway. NancyHeise talk 16:54, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I've removed that. Karanacs (talk) 00:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. "Anglo" (in the first sentence) isn't a word, it's a prefix. It should be replaced with "English", "English-speaking", "Anglo-Saxon", or some similar term. Kaldari (talk) 21:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Anglo" is actually commonly used as a noun among historians of this period in Texas history (1821-1836). It refers to anyone who was not born in Mexico/Spanish territory. Karanacs (talk) 16:37, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • While it may be easy for people familiar with Texas history to know what "Anglo" means, it is by no means a well-known or well-used term (by itself). Why wouldn't you want to replace it will a term anyone could understand? Kaldari (talk) 20:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mean to but in - but - I'm butting : ) - why not just wikilink Anglo which is properly and commonly used alone, not simply as a prefix. See definition in Merriam Webster dictionary. [5] NancyHeise talk 03:05, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the map, leaving only one image for now. For this time period and era, there are few images available. Karanacs (talk) 15:57, 6 September 2009 (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 SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [6].

Chinese classifier

Nominator(s): rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I nominated this for FAC in early July (first FAC) and it was not promoted, I think mainly because of ongoing editing—my discussion with another user at the FAC became more of an unofficial peer review, so it was probably correct to not promote it until things had finished. Since then, however, that review has finished, and it has also been reviewed by another editor; thus, since I came to it, this article has had reviews/comments from Akerbeltz (here and around), Ricardiana (GAN), H1nkles (PR), Kwamikagami (old FAC and here), and an extensive copyedit/review from GeometryGirl (this and subsequent sections), as well as numerous copyedits from me. Now it is a good resource for all kinds of readers, both as a useful introduction for lay readers and beginning Chinese students, and as a detailed analysis and comprehensive bibliography for readers with a strong background in linguistics and/or Chinese language. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment: A rather didactic tone is apparent with phrases such as "To summarize," and "Note that," early in the article. Can these be removed? I will try and comment further later, and will do light copyedits as I read through. First impression: great work in developing the article to this stage. Brianboulton (talk) 18:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Removed those two--thanks for the catch. I don't think it was me who put those in, but the article history is too long to go searching, and it doesn't really matter anyway--the point is perfecting what's there now :). I will give it another read-through to try to see if there are any other 'didactic' bits other than those. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 22:32, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Done; thanks. Alt text is present (thanks), but there are some areas where it can be improved:

  • For File:OracleShell.JPG the alt text duplicates the caption (see WP:ALT#Repetition). Also, since the image contains prominent text it would be helpful if the alt text transcribed it (see WP:ALT#Tricky lettering). Can you turn it into Unicode?
  • For File:Ma Lin 001.jpg the alt text contains text "(1246, Ma Lin)" that cannot be verified just from the image, and needs to be removed or reworded; see WP:ALT#Verifiability.
  • Similarly, File:CCTV Building.jpg has alt text containing "China Central TV tower" which needs to be removed or reworded.
  • The phrases "blue sky in the background" is not-that-relevant detail and can be removed.

Eubulides (talk) 06:55, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

    • File:OracleShell.JPG: the text is ancient Chinese and, as far as I know, does not have unicode for most of it—other than the few characters that are nearly the same as their present-day characters, like 早, most of these cannot be typed. I don't know how crucial it is, though; judging by the link you gave to Purely Decorative Images in this edit summary, it seems to me that either all of these images qualify as "purely decorative", or none do. The text on this oracle bone inscription is certainly not really relevant to the point being made; it's mostly just a decoration to break up the prose.
    • File:Ma Lin 001.jpg: Removed the text "(1246, Ma Lin)".
    • File:CCTV Building.jpg: both bits removed. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 07:26, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Further comments: This is by no means an easy article to read, but for those with patience (and a curiosity for the unfamiliar) it is worth the effort. I have read about two-thirds; my comments are mainly prose quibbles.

  • Count-classifiers and mass-classifiers
    • "Within the range of mass-classifiers, authors have proposed subdivisions..." Who are these "authors"?
    • "...go so far as to propose..." is a bit POV-ish. Suggest delete the "go so far as to" and replace "propose" with "suggest"
      • Removed "so so far as"... I think 'propose' is better than 'suggest', though, since it is just a theory and, like most syntax theories, is pretty difficult to prove or disprove independently. (Then again, I suppose most of what's here is theory as well.)rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Verbal classifers: again the hint of POV – who describes Li and Thompson's work as "seminal"?
    • Li & Thompson (1981) and Chao (1968) are pretty much the 'Bibles' of Chinese linguistics, and almost every article or book on Chinese linguistics written since then cites both of them. (That's not to say they're right; they are, of course, outdated, and we often spend more of our time arguing against them than for them... but they are still generally seen as a starting point, at least, especially in English-language publications.) That being said, the word "seminal" is not necessary here, so I've removed it. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Relation to nouns
    • This sentence: "The Chinese languages each have a large number of nominal classifiers" is virtually an exact repeat of the opening sentence of paragraph 2 under the "Types" heading.
    • This sentence: "The specific factors that govern which classifiers are paired with which nouns have been a subject of debate among linguists" could do with a citation (which might enable those interested to observe the nature of the debate).
      • This, again, is basically a mini-introduction/summary: since the entire section is about this debate and has about 25 footnotes (35&ndash60 or so), I didn't see a need for an over-general reference at the beginning. If one is necessary, though, the Zhang (2007) article is a pretty good review (it's already cited a bunch of times throughout the section anyway). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:33, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Categories and prototypes
    • Several terms in this section have quote marks, e.g. "classical", "conditions", "criteria", "prototype" etc. It is not clear why this should be so.
      • Removed a few; kept "family resemblance" because it's Tai's wording and not mine, and it's not necessarily an everyday word. (Another option, though, would be to remove the quotes and link the term, since it's jargon from linguistic philosophy); kept "classical" because that word in particular is used in a lot of the sources to describe that theory, and I could imagine a reader somewhere down the road going "what's so 'classic' about this?", so I figured I should keep it in quotes to attribute it to its sources. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs
  • Neutralization
    • "It has been noted as early as the 1940s..." "It was noted..." And "as early as the 1940s" reads oddly in the context of languages, which typically develop over thousands of years. I think the whole sentence could do with a bit of treatment, and suggest: "It was noted in the 1940s that the use of 个 was increasing, with a tendency towards replacing specific classifiers with it."
      • While languages develop over thousands of years, they can change in the blink of an eye (look at how fast new slang words can become mainstream), so the reason I used "it was noted" is that this may have been a phenomenon that happened at that time—we have no way of knowing if this kind of neutralization happened in spoken language before Lu (I think that's who it was) wrote about it in the 40s, and thus I didn't want to suggest that it was a speech phenomenon that's been around for hundreds of years. As for "as early as", I had that in there to emphasize this is a speech style that has been around for decades, it's not just recent 'bad grammar' (and, also, to emphasize that this is still going on today--it wasn't just pointed out back then and stopped, but people still talk this way).
  • Variation in usage
    • Several sentences in this section (and others) begin "For example..." Readability is helped if there is some variety in expression; "An example of this is...", or "By way of illustration,..." are possibly ways of varying "For example..."
      • Removed two of them; I think "by way of illustration" is a bit awkward, but it's probably better than over-repeating "for example".
    • "...the lexical meaning of a noun." What is the "lexical" meaning (as distinct from the plain "meaning")?

I will complete my reading over the next couple of days or so. I would very much like to see some analysis from an editor who has some expertise in this area, to see if my instincts about the article quality are confirmed. Brianboulton (talk) 11:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments; I'll leave responses above (I find it easier to leave responses directly under the comments, but if you don't like this format let me know and I'll refactor myself). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have emailed Kathleen Ahrens asking for an expert review. I will let everyone know if she replies. 92.149.7.218 (talk) 21:36, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I'm reiterating my support from last time, especially as I think the article has improved since then (the addition of further examples, etc.) As a student of Mandarin, I find this to be easily the best and most thorough treatment of a part of the Chinese language that is notoriously difficult to learn and to explain. I believe this article meets all of the FA criteria and is a remarkably useful discussion of a remarkably difficult subject. Ricardiana (talk) 15:05, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I found that Morev's paper is available at http://sealang.net/sala/archives/pdf8/morev2000afterthoughts.pdf Maybe we could add links to other online papers. 92.149.7.218 (talk) 20:05, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Almost none of the others are; Shie, T'sou, and maybe Allan are freely available, but the rest I got through my library or bought. Shie and Morev used to be linked in the article, but I decided it looks ugly to have just a few articles linked and the rest not. I think the readers who have enough interest to go beyond this article and read the papers themselves, are probably also the people who know how to find those papers (through a library, etc.). rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 20:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I disagree. Freely available papers should be linked; it is both an invitation to read the source and an easy way to gain time for the interested reader. Also, current references 24, 27, 35, 37, 52, 54, 55, etc. are lacking page number.
        • Those references are lacking page numbers on purpose, because for those parts the reference is the entire paper (ie, the whole paper, including the abstract, is about whatever thing is being discussed there in the prose). As for linking papers... I can dig up the links and add them, but I guess first I'd like to wait and see what other people looking have to say. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 21:10, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • So for example the sentence "Likewise, while long things that are flexible (such as ropes) often take 条 (條) tiáo, long things that are rigid (such as sticks) take 根 gēn, unless they are also round (like pens or cigarettes), in which case in some dialects they take 枝 zhī." is referenced by two whole papers?
  • What about "and function (tools, vehicles, machines, etc.)"? Is that the subject of a whole paper?
  • All reference without page number should be checked to confirm that they indeed don't need a page number. 92.149.7.218 (talk) 21:22, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I went through last night, checked, and added a few page numbers where they didn't seem inappropriate; the ones that are left without page numbers are, by my standard at least, just the ones that don't need them:
      • Tzeng, Chen & Hung 1991 (currently ref #56): citing a statement about aphasics' overuse of 个. That paper is entirely about aphasic classifier production and this is their main finding, it's discussed throughout the whole paper and is in the abstract.
      • Ahrens 1994 (currently ref #59): citing a statement about patterns that govern overuse of 个. Same thing, this is the main point of the paper and is in the abstract (if I cited page numbers for it, I would be citing something like a 15-page range anyway).
      • Tai 1994 (currently ref #62): citing a statement about how classifier-noun pairings vary across speakers. The bulk of this paper is an inventory of kinds of classifiers and how they are used in different speaker populations.
      • Li 2000 (currently used in ref #66 and #71): in all cases, used to cite statements about when and why speakers may choose to use a bare NP rather than a classifier phrase (or vice versa). In all instances, this is the main finding of the paper and is in the abstract.
      • Peyraube 1991 (currently used in ref #86): citing a statement that throughout history classifiers were not always mandatory and not always used. Like Tai 1994, this paper is basically an inventory of historical periods and, for the most part, examples of how little classifiers were used; trying to cite individual pages would result in citing almost every page of the paper anyway.
    • I believe that's all of them. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:13, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]


My final comments: Just a few points picked up in the later sections of the article:-

Brianboulton (talk) 22:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Qualified support: All issues raised by me have been addressed satisfactorily. The "qualified" simply means that I would like to see a comment from an expert in the subject that says "This is OK" or words to that effect. On the principle that no news is good news, if no such expert is forthcoming in a few days I'll remove the qualification anyway. I am really impressed by the effort that has gone into this article, and certainly see it as potentially among Wikipedia's best work. Brianboulton (talk) 16:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Neutral I think this is a very good reference on Chinese classifiers; the best that I know of. However, each time I give it a read I find issues (listed on the talk page), suggesting that much improvement is in order. Also I haven't had a chance to review the references fully, and I don't know of anyone who did the job other than Rjanag who put them up in the first place. When I return to Cambridge I will have access to all the sources and I will check every sentence for appropriate and correct citation; I will also verify that the sources have not been plagiarised. GeometryGirl (talk) 11:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I will be getting to your next batch of talkpage comments this afternoon, hopefully. Please keep in mind, though, that when there is always more than one way to say something, and when an article has gone through as many rounds of copyediting as this has it's inevitable that editors will always find things that they wouldn't mind 'tweaking', which doesn't necessarily mean it's all bad writing—it just means that everyone has their own preferences about how things should be written. I am grateful for your continued comments because they have been helpful; at the same time, though, I just wanted to emphasize that this doesn't necessarily mean that massive "improvement" is needed... rather, it could just mean the article has reached a "quality plateau". Even in the most developed featured articles, everyone will still find phrases that they'd like changed here and there. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 12:04, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, support Perfection is probably not the goal at FAC after all. Rjanag is surprisingly efficient in dealing with issues brought up so I trust that - even with a star - the article will be open to extended improvement. (I'm also curious to see the potential effects of being on the main page.) GeometryGirl (talk) 22:14, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This is great. There are a few things that need fine tuning, but then again, I think just about every article needs fine tuning. One thing that should be adressed though is the red links in the Classifier words subsection. Will there ever be a page on Lü Shuxiang? I doubt it, but someone found it needed to be a link. Same with the two books. This is aesthetic, but I happen to not like the look of red links, especially those that will never be linked to pages. Nezzadar (talk) 01:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • For the redlinks in that section, GeometryGirl and I only created redlinks for pages that have a corresponding article on zh-wiki. I don't know about Li Jinxi, but I do know Lü Shuxiang is a giant in the field of Chinese linguistics (his book is cited about as often, and on the same level, as Chao 1968 and Li & Thompson 1981) and ought to have an article here—that might even go onto my to-do list. Same for the books; these have corresponding articles on zh-wiki. To be honest, I am more concerned about the redlinked English names than the chinese ones (Ahrens, Erbaugh, Li and Tai (ok, those two are Chinese names, but English-language publications); while these people's papers are all widely cited in this topic and they all have made major contributions to the field, I'm not sure if they meet Wikipedia's standard for notability, and if I personally were going to start an article on any of them I don't know where I'd start. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 02:00, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The images File:Denimjeans2.JPG, File:Ulm2-midsize.jpg, File:Garden bench 001.jpg, File:Frecklesmule.jpg are used in violation of their licenses, each of which requires the license to be displayed with the images. As these images are not clickable, the license is not displayed properly; their use is therefore a copyright violation. Stifle (talk) 21:25, 5 September 2009 (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 SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [7].

Cosmo Gordon Lang

Nominator(s): Brianboulton (talk) 23:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Lang, according to his biographers, was an enigma. The youngest archbishop in England in recent times, be began with great promise and large expectations, but in the end, by most accounts, he fell rather short – he himself judged his career a failure. Largely forgotten now, between the wars he was a major figure in British life, and touched many national and international events. Many thanks to the helping hands who monitored the article's progress from start-class, especially those who participated in the very thorough peer review.Brianboulton (talk) 23:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support I thoroughly reviewed the article's prose for consistency during the peer review and see no point in doing it a second time. Compelling article about an interesting character of whom I had only briefly heard. Only point I have remaining is that I'm not entirely clear as to whether the officiating clergy at his baptism was or was not his father, perhaps that could be made a little clearer.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:17, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Later commentators have speculated... homosexual". I'd like to see something much better than "channel four" for this... elsewise, it's just gossip. Besides, you said "commentators" (plural). Ling.Nut (talk) 07:46, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I disagree with you about the status of the Channel 4 source. The "Monarchy" television series and the books accompanying it are the work of Dr David Starkey, a respected academic historian, and cannot be dismissed as "just gossip". Other commentators have been more circumspect about Lang's sexuality. For example, the ODNB biog gives the text of Lang's emotional letter to Wilfred Parker without specifically mentioning sexual feelings, but the letter's inclusion looks like a nudge. Lockhart is even more evasive, but he was writing in 1948 when evasion on such matters was the order of the day. The reference to possible homosexual leanings is within a balanced paragraph. However, if you think the case is not made, I will be happy to withdraw this sentence - there are more important aspects of Lang's life to argue about.Brianboulton (talk) 09:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • If you can find a number of sources that allege it, then fire away. But channel 4 doesn't say maybe, it says "yeah, he was gay." I'd love to log into their website and put a {{fact}} tag on such a bold, bald assertion. So.... if you can back it up further, please do so. If not, please do delete. Ling.Nut (talk) 09:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, there's this, from The Times 1 July 2003, which says: "There have been many closeted gay bishops who have served the Church well, from Cosmo Gordon Lang to..." Remember, I'm not making the claim that Lang was homosexual, I'm merely saying that some modern commentators have said he was, and we now have two quotes from what I consider reliable sources. I have also altered the text of the article slightly: "Some later commentators have suggested...". I think that is fair. Brianboulton (talk) 14:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm poking about in whatever sources I can find, now... and am wondering if the Prayer Book controversy isn't a bit under-represented in the text...
  • Mmm, I saw McKibbin giving specific stats for the defeat of the Prayer Book in the House of Commons, second time around was 266-220 (p. 277, 18n). I dunno if I would call that "narrow", though it's certainly far less than a drubbing.. can we get more specific numbers?
  • "Lang knew the nature of Edward's social circle..." Yeah I know, the full details should be in the abdication crisis article, not this one. But this is unnecessarily cryptic.. a word or two of greater detail, perhaps? After all, it was prominent in his infamous speech, and there was apparently an editorial in the Times after Lang's speech which focused the brunt of its scorn on those social circles rather than the king.
  • Mmmm, I'm looking at Manwaring pp. 12-13, and I don't see any connection at all between Lang and the national Mission of Repentance and Hope. What did I miss?
  • Eh? Kent, John (1992). William Temple: Church, State and Society in Britain, 1880-1950, Cambridge University Press, says lang was "often unwell, and Temple, now Archbishop of York, had to stand in for him from time to time." It also says, "When he was not ill, Lang lacked energy." Did I overlook these health issues in the article?
    • I didn't think that Lang's health issues were that significant. He seems to have enjoyed good health apart from a period around 1929-32, shortly after his Canterbury appointment. I have added a line, with citations, about his illness in that period. Brianboulton (talk) 13:08, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have to go now, but am becoming more & more convinced that the Prayer Book issue is under-represented in the body text and the lead. I think it was one of the two greatest issues in his time as archbishop; a political and religious struggle (albeit a far lesser one than say the Investiture controversy.) Ling.Nut (talk) 11:07, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, it was important, but in the context of an article about Lang's life, I think this issue is properly and adequately represented. Obviously there is plenty more to be said, but this topic is not the focus of this article. There does not appear to be a Wiki article on the Prayer Book revision controversies of the 1920s, but I believe that, or an article on recent Church of England History, would be a proper place for an extended discussion of the topic. Brianboulton (talk) 13:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can you take a look at the alt text for File:Chapel of St Stephen Martyr, Canterbury Cathedral.jpg as it does not read right, probably just a typo. Keith D (talk) 19:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There was a typo ("are" for "area"). Now fixed - very well spotted! Thanks indeed Brianboulton (talk) 21:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments, and questions
  • Re homosexuality: Your own sources said that he got hot 'n bothered over the young girls at a chocolate factory. That hardly seems homosexual per se.
    • Lang was an enigma, with contradictory traits (see Lockhart's summary of his complex character). My job is to record what has been said by reliable sources, on all aspects of his character, not to make judgements. Brianboulton (talk) 18:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not at all done thinking about the Prayer Book controversy . I agree that perhaps it needs its own (brief) article, as you suggest. But even so, this is a key event in Lang's period as Cantuar. Its focus needs to be sharpened; its details collected together and highlighted. It shows his lack of leadership, as you noted far down in the article... It may show a lack of insight: one source said he "badly misread the establishment mood" of government. It shows the political currents (Liberal vs. Labour; see Lang's oft-cited quote about the coal mining issue) and the religious currents (staunch Protestant laity vs. Catholic-wannabe church leaders). ...as you noted, it passed through the religious decision process with overwhelming support... Far more was at stake than simply a prayer book, it was a significant move away from mainstream Protestantism... The defeat of the revision apparently led to discouragement among many clergy, who saw it as an establishmentarian smackdown. Etc. I'm actually not talking about a huge rewrite here. These issues just need to be explained well—though currently they are not.
    • I am a bit puzzled by your analysis. You say the Prayer Book controversy is "a key event in Lang's period as Cantuar", but in fact the House of Commons rejections came before Lang ascended to Canterbury. He thereupon made it a non-issue, which it remained until after his – and his successor's – departure. Yes, he was criticized for this lack of leadership by Bishop Bell, but others considered his inactivity a wise move which faclitated an eventual solution. In the controversy itself, up to 1928, Lang's role was that of a lieutenant to Archbishop Davidson; as Lockhart says, "the story belongs to Davidson rather than Lang". It would be possible to include a little more material, about Lang's influence is bringing about the overwhelming Church vote in favour, or about his misreading of the House of Commons situation, but it would not be right to elevate his role above that of loyal supporter of his senior Archbishop. If Lang's "oft-cited quote" is the one about a fair day's work and a fair day's wage, this was made in 1912, outside the time frame of the Prayer Book controversy and, I would have thought, with no relevance to it. I have no quarrel with your other assertions, but they are basically not about Lang. Anything added to the article in this respect must focus on his role. Brianboulton (talk) 18:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two broad questions that I think were not answered adequately: First, why was his rise so meteoric? Second, and at the same time both more interesting and more important, why was he so ineffectual after he became Cantuar? Ling.Nut (talk) 01:55, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • The first question cannot be answered objectively. Lang wasn't (like Temple or Davidson) the son or son-in-law of an Archbishop, nor was he nurtured in the Church of England; he was a Scots Presbyterian. He wasn't wealthy, had no family influence, and how he rose so quickly is a matter of conjecture. Was he clever, lucky or both? As far as I can within the principle of NPOV, I have marshalled the facts, but the question remains open. As to the second question, "ineffectual" is your word; the general consensus is softer, that he could have done more than he did, but I have not seen him described as ineffectual. Why he fell short of expectations is a matter about which writers have speculated, and which I believe I have summarised in the Assessment section. I am still studying sources for new material that can shed more light on this complicated life. Brianboulton (talk) 18:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by TonyTheTiger (talk · contribs)

03:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Jappalang

Childhood and family

  • "Lang was born at ..."
    It would be better to start off with his full name here (without "William") and insert at least the year of birth as well. Consider the lede and the main text as two separate articles and this should become clear.

University of Glasgow

  • "... met some of the leading academics .... Long afterwards Lang commented on the inability of some of these eminent figures to handle "the Scottish boors who formed a large part of their classes"."
    This was a bit confusing to me till I read "Among his various tutors ..." in the later sentence. The "met ... leading academics" part led me to think that some of them might have been fellow students.
  • "In 1881 Lang made his first trip ... Edwin Booth in Othello. Later that year he travelled to Cambridge to stay with a friend who was studying there."
    What is the point of chronicling young Lang's adventures?
    It's the footy thing – trying to indicate that Lang had a range of interests and wasn't just the class swot. If you think that the references to Liddon, parliament and the theatre are distracting, I can remove them, as they aren't essential to the article. Brianboulton (talk) 11:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    It is interesting, adds a bit of flavour to the account of Lang's youth. I am just wondering if it had wandered too much off the point (trivial). It is not really a big opposable issue. Jappalang (talk) 15:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Compromise: leave in his visits to to St Pauls & parliament, since they have slight bearing on his future career. Drop the theatre as relatively trivial. Does that satisfy? Brianboulton (talk) 10:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Eh, the issue is trivial (I left it unstruck since it is just a matter of personal opinion that is not opposable). Jappalang (talk) 00:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oxford

  • "... described by his biographer Lockhart ..."
    First mention of Lockhart should be by his full name.
    He is known as J.G. Lockhart; I have added these initials to the first mention.
    I found his full name as "John Gilbert Lockhart" on Worldcat,[8] and expanded it in the article. Jappalang (talk) 15:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "... to that of Demosthenes."
    While Demosthenes should be familiar to those in the literary and political circles, the common reader might be ignorant of his significance at first glance (I did not know of his name and reputation till I read Ender's Game...). I think Demosthenes's credential should be made more obvious here (in part contributing to the opinion of Lang's oratory prowess). Perhaps, "... to that of Ancient Greek statesman, Demosthenes."

Towards ordination

  • "Lang's career ambition, settled early in life, ..."
    "Settled" seems to imply the decision was not entirely his alone. Was this the case?

Leeds

  • "He rejected a tempting offer of the chaplaincy of All Souls, as he wanted to be "up and doing" in a tough parish."
    Was All Souls some sort of "soft and cushy" parish?
    All Souls (as stated in last line of previous section) is an Oxford college, so the tempting offer was for the chaplaincy of a college, to which he had been elected a Fellow. It would indeed have been a cushy number, but he rejected it. Brianboulton (talk) 11:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmmm, okay, I was looking to more details of what would be a "tough" parish in those days, but the current wording is nothing opposable. Jappalang (talk) 03:05, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you indicate that your concern here is resolved, or otherwise clarify any outstanding issue with this point?
    Same as the "tour" above, not opposable. Jappalang (talk) 00:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "As well as his parish duties,—Lang acted temporarily as Principal of the Clergy School,—he was chaplain to Leeds Infirmary and took charge of a men's club of around a hundred members."
    • The things he did in addition to his normal parish duties included the temporary principalship of the school, the infirmary chaplaincy and the men's club - all were extracurricular to his everyday parish work. I have slightly reworded, to make this clearer. Brianboulton (talk) 11:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Seeing your clarification, my actual issue (which I thought to solve as above) arises from the placement of "Lang acted temporarily as Principal of the Clergy School" between "In addition to/As well as his parish duties," and "(he) was chaplain to Leeds Infirmary ...". In this case, perhaps the original sentence with a fullstop substituting the comma after "Clergy School" would solve the issue? Jappalang (talk) 15:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sorry, but I don't understand what the "issue" is. The sentence now reads: "In addition to his normal parish duties, Lang acted temporarily as Principal of the Clergy School, was chaplain to Leeds Infirmary, and took charge of a men's club of around a hundred members." I am simply listing three things he did in addition to his normal parish duties. As this is surely clear, why does the sentence need changing? Brianboulton (talk) 10:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • It was grammatical, pertaining to pronouns. From the first sentence, I saw "As well as his ..., Lang acted ..., he was ... .", which seemed weird to me. On re-reading your amendment, it is resolved: "In addition to his ..., Lang acted ..., was ..., and took charge ... ." Sorry for my confused state above. Jappalang (talk) 00:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Portsea

  • "Lang may have realised that he was destined for high office; he is reported to have practised the episcopal signature "Cosmo Cantuar" during a relaxed discussion with his curates."
    What is an "episcopal signature"? How does practising "Cosmo Cantaur" show he knew he was destined for high office?
    I've dropped the "episcopal", and inserted a parenthetical explanatory note. This is an oft-told story of Lang, prematurely practising the signature he would use as Archbishop of Canterbury. It shows that the possibility of high office had entered his mind. Note that I have stood away slightly from the story - "may have realised", "is reported to have"; it's best to be noncommital. Brianboulton (talk) 11:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Pardon my ignorance, but I still have questions over "signature". My understanding of the term is a stylised handwriting of one's name. By "practised the signature ... during a relaxed discussion with his curates", does it mean he signed himself off on paper with "Cantaur" to his name in front of his curates? Jappalang (talk) 15:09, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, evidently that is what he did. Brianboulton (talk) 10:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "As a Royal Chaplain ..."
    When did he become a Royal Chaplain or are all Honorary Chaplains to the Queen Royal Chaplains as well?
    Sorry, I overlooked this. The term "Royal Chaplain" was my unofficial shorthand for Honorary Chaplain to the Queen. I have revised the sentence and ropped the term Brianboulton (talk) 10:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stepney

St Paul's Cathedral

  • "Temple observed that, in contrast to the Bishop of London's sermons, with Lang the pleasure was intellectual rather than emotional, but "I can remember all his points, just because their connexion is inevitable.... And for me, there is no doubt that this is the more edifying by far.""
    Suggestion: "Temple observed that, in contrast to the Bishop of London's sermons, listening to Lang brought on an intellectual rather than emotional pleasure: "I can remember all his points, just because their connexion is inevitable.... And for me, there is no doubt that this is the more edifying by far.""

Appointment

  • "On the issue of age, the Church Times believed it was the deliberate choice ofthat Asquith todeliberately recommended the youngest bishop available, after the PMhe had endured ..."

World War I

  • Suggestion: "Within months hehis looks changed from a dark-haired, young-looking manyouth to that of a bald, and elderly-lookingold man."
  • "... continued his war workcontributions to the war,"

Postwar years

  • "described by Hastings as "one of the rare historical documents that does not get forgotten with the years."
    Does the quote end with this sentence (missing closing quotation marks)?

International and dosmetic politics

  • "... declaring that the Munich Agreement of September 1938 was due to/by the "Hand of God.""?
    • I've looked again, and I wasn't using the "Hand of God" quote correctly. So I've changed the text. Lang called for a day of thanksgiving for the "sudden lifting of the cloud". That is more accurate.

Abdication crisis

  • "... with the American divorcée Wallis Simpson ..."
    This and the following sentences ("... the king intended to marry Mrs. Simpson either before or shortly after his impending coronation.") seem to indicate that Mrs Simpson was divorced at the time of Edward VIII's accession. That is wrong. She was divorced from Spencer but married to Simpson (and still married in 1936). Mrs Simpson/Spencer's status could probably be better explained here.
  • "On 11 December, all attempts to persuade him otherwise having failed, he did so ..."
    Suggestion: "All attempts to dissuade him failed, and on 11 December, he gave up his throne ..."

Assessment

  • "after sitting for Sir William Orpen in 1924, Lang remarked to Bishop Hensley Henson of Durham that the portrait showed him as "proud, prelatical and pompous." Henson's reply was "To which of these epithets does Your Grace take exception?""
    I love this sentence, but is this a factual anecdote? If not, it would be better to establish the context of this quote.
    • Widely quoted, and believed factual, but the story is never pinned down to a specific time and place, nor is it clear who witnessed the exchange. So, I have inserted a couple of caveats. No article on Lang would be complete, I believe, without this line. Brianboulton (talk) 16:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Some commentators have suggested that Lang was a repressed homosexual."
    It should be expounded (briefly if it is a cursory view) on why these commentators hold such suggestions. Leaving it as a single sentence without reason seems to be a bit on the gossip side of things.
    If Starkey and Gove were ordinary newspaper journalists, the "gossip" implication might stick. But they are serious writers who have each made their suggestions in unsensationalist contexts. Neither is specific as to why they hold their views, which I have presented cautiously and in the context of other information about Lang's possible sexual tendencies. Lang was a public figure and things were and will be said about him, by responsible commentators. I think that the "comprehensive" criterion requires me to report such remarks, without in any way endorsing them. Brianboulton (talk) 16:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    They might be serious writers, but it is curious how such an allegation can come about without basis. It seems Ling.Nut (above) shares a similar concern as well. Basically, information is put forth that shows Lang could have carnal thoughts towards women, but nothing backs up the homosexual opinion. Are there no books or newspaper articles that stated such a revelation or assertion with the reasons why? If not, and if the statement is to stay, then I think the authors of those views should be held accountable, i.e. we should explicitly attribute the statement to them, such as "Years after Lang's death, his sexual orientation was questioned. Journalist Michael Gove and Channel 4 television station suggested that Lang was a repressed homosexual." Jappalang (talk) 03:05, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    An excellent idea. I have incorporated it, but have reordered the paragraph so that the "suggestion" no longer hangs fire at the end, where it tended to look like an accusation. The sense of the paragraph now is: "He led a celibate life; people have suggested he was a closet homosexual, and he certainly had emotional friendships with male colleagues; however he enjoyed women's company and found them attractive." I think that is fair; it leaves nothing out, without placing emphasis on any one aspect. See what you think (also Ling Nut comment below). Brianboulton (talk) 10:01, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bibliography

General

  • There are two "the King". I believe it (king) is lowercase when not used as a title.
    • I have lower-cased the first. The second is in a quotation and has to stay as it is. 16:50, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Images

  • All images are verifiably in the public domain or appropriately licensed.

Some of the above are just suggestions (my prose sucks), so... Since my knowledge about the Archibishop of Canterbury is basically restricted to jokes about Henry II's attitude, I am commenting on what appears to be lacking from the viewpoint of a reader fresh to the subject. Looking forward to support once the above are addressed. Jappalang (talk) 08:10, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • The homosexual bit is much, much better. It no longer leaves so many open questions, which previously gave it almost the air of a swipe at his character.
  • I saw at least one quote (dig it up tomorrow) which said the Prayer Bok thing made Lang more conservative (in the general sense). I think this should go in he article and the lead. Ling.Nut (talk) 13:26, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I've watched the changes Brian has made to this article from the beginning (I did add some extra material and refs jsut before he started his revamp, bu the present article is basically "his", though I did do a bit of typo spotting for him along the way), and I beleive it now meets the criteria.
    Comments, on the sexuality issue, I don't think this is overstated (though I do wonder if the only basis that the suggestions have been made on is anglo-catholic plus celibate = "must be gay"). On the prayerbook revision, the article as it stands gives similar weight to the issue as does the ODNB article (the only one of the major sources which is readily available to me). David Underdown (talk) 15:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Ling.Nut (talk) 19:14, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support my issue is addressed and nicely Comment I have replaced the last sentence in the lead, which is unreferenced with the last sentence in the Assessment section which seems to be more NPOV and is referenced. Please let me know if you agree, otherwise I support this article's nomination for FAC. Thanks, NancyHeise talk 16:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I understand your point, but we can't have the exact same sentences ending both the lead and the Assessment section. I have now included a shorter version of the concluding assessment as the final lead sentences. I believe that I have addressed your concern that the lead previously did not wholly reflect the consensus view on Lang's career; I think it now does. Also, it is not necessary to cite lead infomation, provided the material is referenced in the main text. I am sorry if you feel you cannot support the article, but I really do not want to amend the text further on this point. Brianboulton (talk) 23:33, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Well-written, comprehensive. Jayjg (talk) 23:55, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with she link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I reviewed the article earlier and had no quibbles. I did notice the bit about the EB, but that's not enough to hold back my support. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:52, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support I added some comments at peer review; I was mightily impressed with the article then, and the fine tuning arising from the above comments has improved it still further. Tim riley (talk) 12:44, 6 September 2009 (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 SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [9].

Ravenloft (module)

Nominator(s): Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I am nominating this for featured article because I think it meets the FA criteria. It's been nominated before, but it's changed so much since then that I don't think they matter. Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:00, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments - sources look okay, links not checked with the link checker tool, as it was misbehaving. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:49, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Throughout the article I made minor changes, such as word choice or changing the publication "history" section to publication background.

Just a couple other concerns:

  • When Ravenloft' was released, each Dungeons & Dragons module was marked with an alphanumeric code indicating the series to which it belonged.[9]. - what is with the extra marking?
  • In 2004, on the 30th anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons game, Dungeon magazine ranked the module as the second greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time—behind only Queen of the Spiders. - cite
  • Judge Clark Peterson single out the maps and Strahd for praise, saying the vampire is "perhaps on of the best villains of all time". - cite, after a quote
  • In the July 1984 issue of White Dwarf magazine, on a scale of 1 to 10, the module was given 9 for presentation, 9 for playability, 8 for enjoyment, 6 for skill, 6 for complexity, 8 out of 10 overall. - cite
  • It was likened to a Hammer horror production and praised as enjoyable, although the reviewer said the game's puns were tedious and detracted from the spooky atmosphere. - cite

Great work! ceranthor 16:06, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:BOZ fixed all the issues you mentioned. Thanks BOZ, and thanks, Ceranthor, for the support. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
De nada. BOZ (talk) 17:45, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
De nada as well. ceranthor 17:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Jappalang

Plot

  • "... selects five cards."
    Randomly drawn or deliberate decision?
  • "When Strahd is destroyed, the adventure ends."
    96-hour non-stop gaming session?
    Basically, "When Strahd is destroyed, the adventure ends." is not correct. The adventure can also end when every player character has died (darn traps and natural "1"s!!!). An imaginative DM might create a post-Strahd's-destruction scenario to further flesh out the session (celebrating at the village, finding more mysteries in the castle that lead to other adventures, etc). Furthermore, a layman might interprete the sentence to be "You cannot stop the game until Strahd has been destroyed." My suggestion would be "The main objective of the game is to destroy Count Strahd." Jappalang (talk) 03:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Publication background

  • "They play-tested it every Halloween for five years ..."
    Between the two of them? Did they not play Dragonlance with friends (some of whom were notable TSR employees as well) before putting it to paper? Is it the same case here?
  • "When Ravenloft was released, eachEach Dungeons & Dragons module was marked with an alphanumeric code indicating the series to which it belonged."
    Compare to "When the war ended, buntings were put up at every high location in the city." Pay attention to the spatial references. The modules were numbered that way before Ravenloft was released.
    According to the cited FAQ, they were marked that way up through late 1994. Not sure how to word that so I went with "At the time of Ravenloft's release..." BOZ (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    That is fine too. Jappalang (talk) 14:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Strahd had fallen in love with a young girl, ... and Strahd found that he had become a vampire."
    This whole chunk seems more suited to Plot.
  • "... to kill the vampire at the end of the adventure, despite having the Sunsword, he refused, and his companions were forced to complete the task."
    It seems that the Sunsword is not required to kill Strahd... so his refusal seems somewhat non sequitur to his possession of the weapon.
  • "... by introducing a combination monster/character, with the abilities of a vampire and a magic-user."
    Rather confusing sentence to a layman, might be clunky to those in the know. Suggestion: "... by introducing a monster with the abilities of a player character class, that is a vampire magic-user."
    Got it. BOZ (talk) 12:05, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ravenloft II

  • "Although Ravenloft II is credited to the Hickmans, Tracy Hickman left TSR before the module was complete."
    "Credited to the Hickmans", so what happened to Laura?
    The sentence reads strange; first part talks about two, the second only one. Since no reliable sources chronicled the fate of Laura, it would be better to change the focus of the sentence entirely to one: "Although Tracy Hickman was credited in Ravenloft II, he had left TSR before the module was completed." Jappalang (talk) 00:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Despite these problems, he said it included "Lots of monsters, plenty of roleplaying, lots of offstage action, items and crucial information to be gathered, and topped off with an excellent ending. What more could you ask? Excellent, highly recommended.""
    Highly promotional tone, despite the quotation marks. It can be trimmed to "Despite these problems, he highly recommended it for "lots of monsters, plenty of roleplaying, lots of offstage action, items and crucial information to be gathered, and [...] an excellent ending.""

Adaptations

  • "Ravenloft has been revised and expanded twice."
    Module or campaign? Since the campaign has been mentioned just before this, it is better to clarify here.
  • "(8 session)" and "(4 session)"
    "x sessions" or "x-session"?

Reception

  • "Judge Bill Slavicsek", "judge Andy Collins", "Judge Clark Peterson", "Judge John Rateliff"
    Besides repetitious, I would prefer to have their credentials stated. "Judge" is no means of knowing why they are experts in the field.
  • "... on a scale of 1 to 10, the module was given 9 for presentation, 9 for playability, 8 for enjoyment, 6 for skill, 6 for complexity, 8 out of 10 overall."
    I am not entirely certain ratings are encyclopaedic.
  • "... use of normalcommon D&D monsters in D&D,"
    The sentence this fragment appears in should be re-written. The reviewer is saying that the typical monsters of D&D (e.g. goblins, orcs, etc) do not fit in a gothic horror atmosphere. "Normal D&D monsters" means, to me, all the monsters in the game, unmodified in any manner.

Images

  • Images are appropriately licensed; the use of the sole non-free image is justified by its fair-use rationale.

Awaiting feedback. Jappalang (talk) 11:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed everything that BOZ didn't get to except a few things.diff
I'm not sure what you meant by "96-hour non-stop gaming session?"
I changed it to "They play-tested the adventure with a group of players each Halloween" but I'll have to check the source (which I don't have handy right now) to make sure. I think it's common sense that it wasn't just the two of them.
"Strahd had fallen in love with a young girl, ... and Strahd found that he had become a vampire." I put it in plot. Although that info is also in the module, I got my summary from Hickman's summary in another source, so I cited that. The problem is that it's three sentences in the middle of the plot section, so I'm not sure if I should cite each sentence, or what. I currently just cited the end of it, but then it's not clear where it began.
"Credited to the Hickmans" I'm pretty sure she never worked there other than with her husband, but the source doesn't say.
The Judge part. I've made sure that each has a wikilink now. I think the source (which I don't have handy) mentions there credentials, so I'll add that soon and not use judge so much.
Thanks for the detailed review. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed the judges thing. The source doesn't say much about who exactly play tested it. I can leave it with "a group of players" or I can go back to how it was earlier if you think that's OR. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Pardon my attempt at humor, I have expanded on the "96-hour non-stop gaming session" issue. Jappalang (talk) 03:16, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your attempt made me laugh, but belatedly. I fixed the 96 hour ( ;-) ) problem.[10]
"Although Ravenloft II is credited to the Hickmans, Tracy Hickman left TSR before the module was complete" I've looked for sources on when Laura left TSR and why to add in. No luck. Her last work for TSR seems to be 1986, the same year as House of Strahd, but that's as close as not committing OR as I can come (without a better source), and I think it's too close.
Thanks again. You're comments have really improved this article in my opinino. (I'm not saying you can't find other things. I'm just impressed.) - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on sources: I just looked through the references. Out of 29 sources used, 21 are in no small way affiliated with the publishers of the module or the authors themselves... While Ravenloft is no doubt notable (as evident from third-party sources on D&D), the large use of primary sources might be of concern. This could be understandable, as RPGs are quite a niche low-profile (unless we get into those "products of evil" media condemnations) products. Jappalang (talk) 00:19, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't really disagree. But, as you say, there aren't a ton of independent sources. I basically grabbed all the RSs I could, regardless of independence. I can reduce the number of non-independent sources (although it would make the article smaller), but I don't have a lot of options for increasing the independent ones. There is a review of it in an issue of The Space Gamer #72, which I don't have. I'm not sure how to get it, either. I think it's pretty rare. Even with it, it won't change the ratio that much, and it's info would go in the Reception section, which is one of the few balanced sections at the moment. So, I'm not sure what to do. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:54, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the last unstruck item brought up by Jappalang, here is the exact quote from the source: "The House on Gryphon Hill was the final project Hickman worked on before he left TSR to pursue a career as a freelance novelist in the wake of the success of the Hickman-Weis Dragonlance novels, and he didn’t manage to finish it before he left. Hence, although Tracy and Laura Hickman are credited for their outline and having come up with the overall plot for the adventure, most of the actual writing was done by a hastily assembled crack team of TSR designers in order to meet the rapidly approaching release date" BOZ (talk) 01:10, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I don't believe that Laura was ever a TSR employee (the work she did was likely freelance). BOZ (talk) 01:12, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind making the change, but I'd like to hear what you think now, in case you feel differently, Jappalang. Thanks for this very detailed review. It's a lot of fun. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:13, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here's my latest thought. How about attributing the statment and saying it doesn't say what Laura did. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But, I made the change you recommended. I like it, so unless you want me to change it, I'll leave it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:40, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support (outdent): After resolving the above, I am putting my support for this article. The quality of the prose is not judged (as it is not my forte), but I believe this article is as comprehensive as it can be with the sources available, putting forth a summarized neutral view of the subject, and its image use is compliant with policies and guidelines. Jappalang (talk) 22:51, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments – Reviewed this at the last FAC, which I don't remember that well. Didn't find too much in a full reading; just the points below:
  • Plot: "The next two cards determine the locations of Straud and the Tome of Straud. The Tome of Straud...". Notice the repetition from sentence to sentence? The best solution is to merge the two sentences, as the resulting sentence will have good length and flow.
  • "and made a pact with evil powers in order to live forever." Tiny bit of wordiness that can easily be removed. I saw another one of these later in the Ravenloft II section.
  • I assume DM is the Dungeon Master? That briefly confused me. Might be a good idea to either spell it out or include a parenthetical abbraviation on the first use.
  • Publication background: "It consisted of a 32-page book, with seperate maps detailing game locations." The with+-ing sentence structure is something FAC prose reviewers have worked hard to reduce, since it is a generally awkward structure. Fortunately, a fix here is easy: "maps that detailed" or "maps which detailed".
  • Tracy and Laura Curtis...". The linked article implies that this is incorrect, and should either be "Tracy and Laura Hickman" or "Tracy Hickman and Laura Curtis".
  • "to make it distinguishable it from the original". Little typo there.
  • Reception: Comma after "were teleported away and replaced with undead wights"? Also need an apostrophe inside "adventures" in this sentence.
  • "the module was given 8 out of 10 ovarall". Double-check last word. :-) Giants2008 (17–14) 01:42, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – Looks like a pretty good one to me. I do wish there were a few more secondary sources, but this is not the sort of thing that would have been widely discussed in the general media at the time. I'm confident that the best avaliable sources are in here. Giants2008 (17–14) 01:32, 4 September 2009 (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 SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [11].

Yukon Quest

Nominator(s): JKBrooks85 (talk) 12:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Hello! I'm JKBrooks85. You might remember me from such FACs as 2009 Orange Bowl and Rampart Dam, but today I'd like to introduce you to something a little different. This is an article about the Yukon Quest, an annual 1,000-mile sled dog race from Fairbanks, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon. This is the third nomination for this article, and in order to ensure this time will be successful, I had the help of a number of superb editors in preparing the article. Maralia and Hoary did a complete copy edit, and Hoary also did a great deal of trimming to streamline the prose. Tony1, Dr. Blofeld, and Laser brain gave their nods to the article as well, and I hope you'll do the same. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please don't hesitate to drop a note on my talk page. JKBrooks85 (talk) 12:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments: Seems like a very good article, although the endorsement doesn't quench my prose regime! I have a couple of issues:
  • Lead:
    • "drop dogs at checkpoints and dog drops". You have "drop dogs" and "dog drops". Could "drop dogs" be replaced by "leave dogs" or similar, as the two are so close it could lead to confusion (as it did for me). Also I think "dog drops" needs to be put in quotation marks.
      • Changed first "drop" to "leave". I'm unsure about adding quote marks around the dog drops, since the term appears so much in the rest of the article and might need to be changed at other mentions. ... For consistency's sake, I think it might work better as is.
    • " "The statement at the bottom on Yukon Quest International, could that be incorporated into the first paragraph? It looks and reads awkwardly where it is, and I'm against such separation from main paragraphs.
      • I've folded it into the preceding paragraph. Putting it in the top paragraph might cause confusion, since the second paragraph references "the competition", and that sentence refers to two additional races.
  • History:
    • The text before Origins feels so strained and unnecessary. It needs to be given some purpose or removed.
      • Done. I don't like leading a section with a sub-section header, so I've also deleted the "origins" subsection header.
  • Participants:
  • No problem. I give my support for this article. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 13:47, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Pending the addressing of reviewers' comments. I was encouraging and believed this should be worked up to FA standard, but did not give a blanket endorsement. All the same, I think this is now pretty well-written; I do hope it succeeds. A few things towards the top:

  • Maybe there's a good reason not to convert "1000-mile" to metrics at the top? It's "1016 miles or more" below; bit confusing. Is it billed as "1000-mile"? If not, you might consider the less precise "long-distance", given that the exact minimum is provided further down in the lead.
  • Yeah, the 1,000-mile part is actually part of the official name. I bolded it up top on first reference to bring that out ... is there another way that would work better?
  • 80 km/h winds? Child's play, seriously.
  • "On February 25, 1984, 26 racers"—good case for spelling out 26.
  • Because of the introductory phrase?
  • "first-place prize"—couldn't be just "first prize"?
  • Works for me.
  • ... Alaska, Alaska ...
  • Reworded and shortened.

I've lashed out and made the image sizes more generous. The "eastern slope" and the one under it now probably need to go a little up. Change the sizes if you don't like the resizing, but most of the pics are good and contain a lot of detail the readers will want to see. The map and "Petty crossings" are still a bit on the small side, I think. Tony (talk) 11:33, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weak support This is just about there, my concern though is that in places I feel it could be made more concise still and given another copyedit. Also maybe you could reduce some of red links by starting new articles?Himalayan Explorer 12:56, 25 August 2009 (UTC) (formerly Blofeld)[reply]

Comment. Alt text is done and that is present is mostly very good; thanks. However, the alt text for the map File:2009 Yukon Quest map.svg doesn't convey the gist of the useful visual info in that map. It should mention the general location, direction, and major highlights of the map (no need to list all the cities; that's too much detail). Alt text is missing for File:Yukon Quest participants graph.svg (please give gist of what that graph says, rather than irrelevant visual detail such as color or whether it's a line graph) and for File:White Pass RR station.jpg. Eubulides (talk) 14:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Provisional support – Supported the first time, abstained the second time, and am coming back on the support side now. I read through the lead, which looks good, but have gone no further yet; hence the provisional. I'll probably end up making any needed fixes myself because I'm in a time-saving mode at the moment. When I finish going through it, I plan on fully supporting. Shouldn't take too long, given that it was a great article before the copy-editing. Giants2008 (17–14) 01:12, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support, though with two major dislaimers: (i) I'm ignorant of the subject, (ii) some of the rephrasing is my own. So all in all my opinion is probably worthless. Still, I believe I can say that the article is most interesting and informative, scrupulously sourced (wherever I've checked), and well illustrated. (As somebody who has "frozen" during mere hour-long motorcyle rides in temperatures above freezing, I'd still rather like to know how the participants protect themselves against extensive frostbite in that vile-sounding combination of wind chill and long hours; but perhaps this will be more obvious to other readers.) -- Hoary (talk) 03:14, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support, with the mild disclaimer that I copyedited this fairly extensively before FAC. I have reviewed the changes since, and I'm confident it meets the criteria. Maralia (talk) 02:22, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On my browser, there are lots of image layout issues. There's a big white space in "Pre-race preparation", another in "Two Rivers to Fairbanks", and there are several left-aligned images under third-level headings. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 6 September 2009 (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 SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [12].

California's 12th congressional district election, 1946

Nominator(s): Wehwalt (talk) 09:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I am nominating this for featured article because... I believe it meets the FA criteria. The fifth, and perhaps final (though I am considering an article on the Alger Hiss imbroglio) in my Nixon series, it covers Nixon's first election campaign. It's a GA, in which our WP Nixon expert, Happyme22 was asked for a second opinion by the reviewer and endorsed the GA, and received a peer review by Brianboulton, who was favorable (favourable, in his case) about the article. Most of the photos were taken by me on a visit to California earlier in the summer, at which I also visited three archives to obtain the official Statements of Vote and seek other appropriate sources (such as newspaper clippings from 1946 not available online) that would help this article. I think it's ready to go.Wehwalt (talk) 09:50, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Good article; interesting read. The only thing I noticed is the last source (1946 election results) is missing publisher, date etc. Dave (talk) 01:06, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's now fixed. I have the official California statement of vote too, but better to have an online ref there, I think. Thanks for the praise!--Wehwalt (talk) 07:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't that many anyway, someone could do it manually in very little time I suspect. This is an article mostly from offline sources. Thanks Ealdgyth!--Wehwalt (talk) 20:29, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked from the top down to the start of "Background".

  • Comma required after "Nixon" in the opening para.
  • Bit clunky, or at least unnecessarily "marked" with bumps: "which would, almost a quarter century later, lead to the White House". Consider "which would lead to the White House almost a quarter century later."
  • Why is "World War II" linked? Is it an obscure event that even a few readers have never heard of?
  • "and to connect" might be better than "and successfully connect", given that the previous "to" is way back and that to connect is to connect.
  • Perhaps "in the election" rather than "in November", since non-US readers will be unfamiliar with the constitutional setting of the ?first Tuesday in November for elections for all levels of government.
  • "explanations have been made" – Consider "put forward" or "proposed" or "considered". "ranging" might be dropped.
  • "such errors" doesn't work—it's plural, but refers back by comparison to a singular "campaign". It's also a little laboured, I think. Could you express the opposite in substantive terms? "while Nixon ran a skilled .... ".
  • "encompassing such (at the time) small towns as"—clunky; perhaps "at the time encompassing such small towns as"?

This demonstrates the need for fresh eyes to copy-edit throughout. Two things that might be watched are comma usage and the awkward placement of phrases in the middle of sentences. Tony (talk) 10:45, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll start looking for someone to look at the article, but I may await additional comments so as to consolidate things, and perhaps one of the reviewers will be minded to do some work. Since this article is almost entirely my writing, it therefore displays my writing quirks. As for the White House sentence, I think it important that the sentence end with the words "White House", I'll look at alternative phrasings. Otherwise some of the effect is lost.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've made most of the specific changes Tony noted. I struck the parenthetical (at the time), because doing it the way he suggested would lead to an ambiguity, the reader could see it as a statement that the 12th district no longer includes any of those towns, which is actually true, since the present 12th district is up by San Francisco, but that's not the point that is trying to be made. I delinked World War II and also Washington D.C. All other comments were acted upon, and I'm seeing about getting a fresh set of eyes.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"which almost half a century later would lead to the White House.", perhaps? Reviewers are under no obligation to edit nominations—in fact, I would discourage more than a little of that, since we are so short of reviewers. Unfortunately, we are reduced to providing examples from small portions, then returning to re-assess; or at least that is how I try to cover as many nominations as possible. Quirks? Not sure about that unless the readers are likely to find them easy to get; what is most important is a smooth read. Tony (talk) 11:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Quarter century. Yes, your suggestion is fine. Frankly, I'm happy for help at any hand.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:53, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think Tony's comments have been addressed, and I dropped a note on his talk page so stating.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. An excellent and balanced article, both well-written and well-sourced. I have only a couple of suggestions:
    • Maybe add a picture of Voorhis?
    • In the South Pasadena debate, you write that Hoeppel asked one question -- do you know what the question was? It's not crucial to the article, but it might be interesting to the reader. Coemgenus 14:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unhappily, I have not been able to find a free use picture of Voorhis. That's why I fell with glad cries on the license plate attachment at the Nixon Museum which includes a picture of Voorhis (figuratively, it was behind glass), and I photographed that, it's three dimensional and for public display, perfect free use! As for Hoeppel's question, the actual question is not in any source I've been able to find, but it, according to Bullock, had to do with a group in the Spanish Civil War that Voorhis had supported (I gather, though Bullock is imprecise, on the losing side) which was by 1946 believed to be Communist Front. Bullock describes the question as "tricky". Bullock does not say what Voorhis said in response. Gellman doesn't mention it. Morris mentions it, using similar language, and cites to Bullock. I'd be open to putting it in a footnote. Let me know what you think.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:32, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's too bad about the picture. That's one of the difficulties of writing about post-1923 figures. As to the question, if it's not that relevant, maybe it's best left out, or relegated to a footnote. I have the Gellman book, which doesn't list it, so I was curious. Anyway, great article -- good luck with the FA nom! Coemgenus 16:19, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good news about Prof. Gellman. The archivist at the Nixon Library told me he's almost ready to go with the second part of his projected three part bio of Nixon. He was out sick for quite a while. Thanks for the support!--Wehwalt (talk) 16:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments, leaning to support: I was involved in the peer review, and most of the substantive issues I raised there have been addressed. In general this is an excellent addition to the growing collection of early Nixon articles, and Wehwalt is to be commended for the depth of his research and for his narrative abilities. I mentioned at the review that the prose might need some final polishing, and that still appears to be the case. I have fixed a couple or so minor glitches; here are a few more to be looked at:-

  • Lead
    • I suggest: "First elected to Congress in 1936, Voorhis..."
    • Also, "For the 1946 contest, Republicans sought a candidate..."
    • I'd avoid the repetition in the third paragraph by saying: "...while Voorhis did not return from Washington D.C. until..."
    • ...and in the last paragraph, rather than repeat "defeat of Voorhis", I would simply refer to Nixon's "victory".

Done with minor changes.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • District and campaigns
    • "Voorhis was re-elected by 13,000 votes in 1942"; without knowledge of the total vote, this doesn't tell us whether the 1942 election was close or a walkover. Could "a majority of x%" be added in?
    • Just a thought: are military school principals by definition weak candidates? Otherwise, in regard to 1940, it might be appropriate to say something like "he faced a military school principal with no political experience" - or some such.
      • After digging through Bullock, I find he says that the principal, Capt. Irwin Minger "was an unknown". I'll give him the benefit of the down and call him "little-known".--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Search for a candidate
    • "Tammany Hall" will mean nothing to the great majority of non-American readers (except for the odd geek like me who did an American politics option). Although the term occurs within a quote, this is, I think, an occasion when a wikilink inside a quotation would be helpful.
    • I appreciate the concern to avoid repeating Nixon's name, but calling him "the naval officer" is too anonymous. There are other repetitions in these two sentences which in my view are equally distracting. Thus, I would go for: "When the Committee met on November 28, Nixon received over two-thirds of the vote, which was quickly made unanimous. Chairman Roy Day immediately notified the victor of the Committee's endorsement."
      • Fair enough. You've read my prior FACs when I've been nailed for rep of the name of the subject. I've changed that and also changed two other allusions to Nixon to his name and hopefully the wind won't hit me from the other side.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Suggest instead of "The naval officer was a virtual unknown..." say "The candidate was a virtual unknown..."
    • Two consecutive sentences begin "Charles Voorhis..." Could the second start "Voorhis Sr"?
  • Primary campaign
    • "In mid-March, Nixon was approached by former congressman Hoeppel, who hated Voorhis." In view of the strong verb "hate", shouldn't this statement be cited?
        • Not a problem. Just found it in Bullock. "a bitter, relentless foe throughout his life" Nixon bios also call him "enemy" and so forth, but they've all read Bullock too.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Nourished by the PAC controversy, the campaign had new life..." Suggest "the Republican campaign"
  • Additional debates
    • "The candidates were compared to Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas" Surely, the comparison was with the Lincoln-Douglas debates rather than, as implied, with the personalities? This should be clarified. Also (for the benefit of Brits etc.), it should be mentioned that the debates in question took place during the 1860 presidential campaign.
        • No, they were referred to as being like Lincoln and Douglas. Bochin's book is online, see here, page 18. Now, I do have a Newsweek post election article where it refers to Nixon having bested Voorhis in five Lincoln-Douglas debates and Voorhis saying of Nixon "The fellow has a silver tongue" but I'm suspicious of it, it does not sound like Voorhis, even a Voorhis trying to be gracious.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • It would help my fellow-Brits if some explanation was added as to why the Lincoln and Douglas comparison was made. Could you add the words "who had debated before the 1860 presidential election" or some similar wording, using thr link? This is a suggestion, not a request. Brianboulton (talk) 22:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is there any reason/history behind Warren's letter praising Voorhis? It seems an odd thing to have done.
      • Warren probably did not intend it politically, from what I gather. Voorhis used a very nice letter Warren had sent him for helping to get a bill passed in the campaign. Warren did not endorse congressional candidates, but Nixon's people went to Warren and said that since Voorhis is using your letter in his campaign, you should disavow the letter or else endorse Nixon. Warren said Voorhis deserved the compliment and he wasn't going to endorse Nixon. Do you think I should add more exposition there?
  • Historical issues
    • "In 1981, three years before his death, Voorhis denied in an interview that he had been endorsed by the NCPAC." Perhaps this should say "In an interview in 1981, three years before his death, Voorhis repeated his denial that he had been endorsed by the NCPAC."
        • No, you've fallen under the spell of Chotiner. It was the CIO-PAC he denied. He didn't know about the NCPAC until South Pasadena. A little revisionism on Voorhis's part. He "indignantly denied it", too!--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Nixon's backers, especially in the Committee of One Hundred, have been a matter of controversy..." Is it not the identity of Nixon's backers which is a matter of controversy?
        • I've rephrased. I had consecutive paragraphs basically comparing and contrasting the same things. I've combined them. You always catch the things that are bothering me a little, but not quite enough to do anything about it. Now I have.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I will be pleased to switch to full support when these matters are tidied up. Brianboulton (talk) 18:20, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am happy with the amendements that have been made, and have registered full support, above. Brianboulton (talk) 22:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I will put in those suggestions. Right now Mattisse is busy copyediting and I don't want to ec her, so expect the changes a little later on. I'm please at the reception this article is getting, it gave me a lot of trouble, I started it before the Senate article but found that one was easier to work on.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:00, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Questions from Ssilvers
  • I am concerned with the very first sentence of the article that says, "An election for the United States House of Representatives took place in California's 12th congressional district...." Didn't the election take place throughout the U.S. on the same date? Shouldn't this say something like, "An election for the United States House of Representatives took place on November 5, 1946. In California's 12th congressional district, the candidates were...."? How do other high-quality election articles solve this?
I strongly believe the subject of the article, even if not stated in the exact same words as the title, should be in the first sentence of the article. There is an article about the 1946 elections, though it is mostly tables. I am splitting the first sentence into two sentences, which I think will address your concerns. It bumps "Nixon" into the second sentence, but that can't be helped. The only high quality election article is my article on the United States Senate election in California, 1950, which has a similar tone to the first sentence.
I looked it over. I think it does. In very summary form, it tells what the article is about, and leads the reader through it quickly.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hometowns. I'll find a way to put in a nice looking text note.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Regardless of whether my above comments lead to modifications or not, I support the promotion of this article to FA. I have very much enjoyed reading it. The prose is lively, even compelling (and that's saying something for a Wikipedia article!). Congratulations to Wehwalt and the other editors of this article on a fine contribution to Wikipedia. Disclosure note: as I read the article, I made some minor copy-edits to it. -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:48, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

THanks for the support! I've addressed your concerns.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Taken care of.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:16, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do reliable sources state these two (they read as synthesis or OR)?
  • Most books that discuss the 1946 campaign agree that Nixon's campaign was far more effective than Voorhis's.
Deleted.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:16, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most commentators stated that Nixon ran a strong campaign, while the incumbent's campaign was badly organized and plagued with errors.
I've replaced the statement with one about the money dispute which certainly should be in the lede.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:30, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • These two seem at odds with each other:
  • Nixon had a great advantage in press coverage in the race. (not cited, according to whom?)
  • His one avenue of outreach in the press was his newspaper column, People's Business, which ran in most local newspapers. In July 1946, Voorhis chose to suspend this column lest it be thought that he was using it as a means of campaigning. According to Gellman, this weakened Voorhis's political outreach.[93]
The second statement reads as if Voorhis had a great advantage, but gave it up. So, in general, I'm wondering if some of the lead-ins contain synthesis, or can be rephrased or attributed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:02, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked at the lead ins in the aftermath section and reffed, changed, or deleted them. I've expanded and reffed the sentence about the press advantage. That's all of them, Sandy. Thank you.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:04, 6 September 2009 (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 SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [13].

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter

Nominator(s): Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


If you're interested in the sad business decisions of a 1990s video game company, then consider Turok: Dinosaur Hunter your primer. It's got guns, dinosaurs, and serious revenue shortages... read on! Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: The article looks to be in good shape. Here are the issues which stood out to me.

  • Some words and abbreviations are used interchangeably without letting the reader know that one is an abbreviation. I suggest using "Nintendo 64 (N64)" and "three-dimensional (3D)" in the article for the first instance of the terms and using the abbreviation for the remainder of the article.
  • The image of the N64 seems a bit superfluous. Maybe mention the analog joystick's reception in the caption to better strengthen the connection.
  • The fourth development paragraph goes into a lot of detail about Acclaim's woes. This is great information, but it seems better suited for Acclaim's article and deviates too far from the subject of Turok in my opinion.
  • I know we disagree on the use of quotations in reception sections, but I still have to bring it up I guess: I think the quotes should be paraphrased more. This of course does not break any style guideline to my knowledge so you are welcome to do what you see fit.
  • The last section reads almost like a "Reception and legacy" section. Maybe consider renaming it. Also, the latter half of the last "Development" paragraph sounds more like reception and legacy content to me, and would fit well with the renaming.
  • Not sure, but I think a comma is needed after "contrast" here: "In contrast William Burrill of...'".
  • Are there any other sources to use in place of the older IGN and GameSpot ones?

I'll probably be offline most of the weekend so I'll check back Monday at the latest. (Guyinblack25 talk 22:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC))[reply]

  • I've hopefully clarified the 3D and N64 terms, added the N64 joystick info to the photo caption, and renamed the last section. To me the last bit of the development section was more about release and thus didn't really mesh with the reception that well. What do you mean by other sources to use in place of the IGN and GameSpot ones? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 00:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Disregard the comment about sources. Further inspection removed my concerns. IGN was an offshoot of Imagine Publishing in the early days and the GameSpot sources are only being used for opinion and a release date.
      What about the tangential details of Acclaim's woes?
      "Both "Nintendo 64" and "N64" are used throughout the article. The clarification removes the confusion, but I think only using one would be more consistent and improve readability. Everything else looks great. (Guyinblack25 talk 15:43, 31 August 2009 (UTC))[reply]
      • I've gone ahead and swapped N64 out for Nintendo 64. As for the details about Acclaim's woes... yeah, it's a bit tangental as it doesn't deal directly with the game's development, but I think it contextualizes a lot and explicitly states how badly Acclaim needed its first big next-gen title to be a hit. Better to err on the side of more info than less, especially in an article that's not threatened with becoming too chunky, is my standpoint. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 18:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Support: Looks good to me. Though I don't agree with all the content's presentation, it does not seem to violate WP:FA?. The prose is well-written, the article is informative, and the sources look good. Another excellent article David. Keep up the good work. (Guyinblack25 talk 18:53, 31 August 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Support - based on Citerion 1a. Is the prose clearer to this non-gamer because games have become much more complex over the past ten years :-) ? Graham Colm Talk 17:42, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support - A thorough article and a pleasure to read. I've found no errors in the article and no reason to object. Well done!--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:51, 30 August 2009 (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 SandyGeorgia 22:53, 6 September 2009 [14].

Blackburn Olympic F.C.

Nominator(s): ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


An interesting (hopefully) article about a football club which folded 120 years ago this year but played a very important part in the development of professional sport. It had a PR, at which User:Finetooth commented that there was very little that needed changing, so hopefully it's now ready for FA, but let me know what you think. Cheers!!!!! -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:16, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Not a good opening: "Blackburn Olympic F.C. was an English association football club based in Blackburn, Lancashire, which existed in the late 19th century. (This overcomes "existed ... extistence", and the forced vagueness of a 100-year window, clarified in the second para (around the 1880s.)
  • You could almost get rid of ", however," in the second para, given the "only" before it; up to you (it's 50/50).
  • "to legalise professionalism two years later"—so it was illegal until then? Or perhaps "to legitimate" or "endorse" or "set the rules for"?
  • Another ", however," only four seconds later. And I noted two "only"s above (whichd was OK, but do watch those close repetitions).
  • Comma after "era" because the final clause is such a major statement? Slow down the reader?
  • "Existence" for a third time. "For most of that decade"? Or remove that phrase altogether if it's assumed ...
  • Readers have to hit the "strip" link to find out what it means? Still link, but can't it be kinder ... "strip (uniform)" or even "(kit)". Unsure.
  • Subtle point: "The club's first-choice strip consisted of light blue shirts and white shorts from 1880 onwards."—If you put the time-phrase first, as the grammatical "theme" (point of departure), there will be no sense that they had a first-choice strip before 1880. "From 1880 onwards, the club's ...".
  • Why the tiny tiny images? MoS's guidelines have been clarified on this recently. I'd be going for 240–280px (or "upright=1.2–1.5").
  • "where for the first time they faced opponents from the south of England in the form of Old Carthusians."—"in the form of" is a bit laboured in this context (or precious, even); replace with a dash?
  • "However" best first in a sentence; some pedant in the early 20th C said to next it in commas as the second element. Should have been horse-whipped. Best to give the readers the angle up-front.
  • "the first occasion on which a northern team had reached the final." --> "the first time a northern ...".

So ... I have no time to sift through the rest at the moment. This should be promoted, I think, but needs an independent run-through—not a long job, since much of it is very well written. It's good. Tony (talk) 14:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments Tony, I'm presuming you didn't mean to score through most of them. I've tweaked the lead in line with your suggestions. As for the images, I thought we weren't supposed to "force" the size of images other than potentially the lead image..........? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 14:19, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:IMAGES has changed—if necessary, you can set the sizes of the images. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:11, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 08:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Image comments
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 Karanacs 15:59, 1 September 2009 [15].

Chicado V

Nominator(s): Ealdgyth - Talk 21:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I am nominating this for featured article because... It's been copyedited by Malleus, BrianBoulton, Moni, Xandar, and Iridescent and if there is anything else to be discovered about this mare, I would love to find out. Chicado V is in the top ranks of "blue hen" mares of the Quarter Horse breed, and most all Quarter Horse racehorses descend from her at least once. Ealdgyth - Talk 21:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
  • Burke in notes but not refs; conscious choice?
  • Also, is that pronounced Chicado Vee or Chicado the Fifth? I assume the former, but...?
  • "started, or took part in races, " really awkward, unless... she... was in a race that she didn't start? I suppose this is an attempted to explain "started", but it doesn't work for me. Ling.Nut (talk) 02:17, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Burke is an oversight, fixing now. Pronunciation is up in the air, I'd assume Vee, but nothing definitive is known. My assumption is that she had the V added on to Chicado to distinquish her from an earlier registered "Chicado", the V being chosen for her owner's last name. I've never run across Chicado I, II, III, or IV, but no source states how her name was pronounced. Unfortunately, you wanting me to change the "started" thing conflicts with other editors who wanted an explanation put in. Sometimes, it's impossible to satisfy everyone. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Broodmare career".. would you add up the sons and daughters and put the total in the first or second sentence of this section (and perhaps in the lead; your call)? Simple addition is NOT WP:OR.
  • Why? I don't set out the various statistics in Easy Jet or Go Man Go? And where would I stop with this sort of summary? Should I set out how many of each color she had, that's actually of more interest to horsepeople. I could figure the ratio of starters to foals, or the ratio of winners to starters among her foals, more information of interest to horsepeople, but definitely minutiae that would make the already dry article even drier. I'm not saying I won't do it, but I'm curious as to why it's needed? (It's not a common bit of summary information for horses, it's not part of the Legends 5 article and generally isn't something you'll see noted anywhere. For example, although the AQHA dam record gives total numbers on a summary sheet, it's not broken down by number of foals for each gender.) Ealdgyth - Talk 02:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because it is basic information, and extremely relevant. because it is easy to do. Because your lead says "Her daughter x", making it sound like there was only one daughter. Because it adds summary info to the section, making it easier to follow/understand... Here's my count:
  • Triple Chick — male
  • War Chic — male
  • Table Tennis — female
  • Three Chicks — male
  • Chicado Chick — male
  • Anchor Chic — male
  • The Ole Man — male
  • Successor — male
  • Alisal — female
  • Eh? Where's Rapid Volley in all that? Seems she's a grandget; the lead calls her a daughter...
Typos, probably. Fixed. I've clarified the lead to "One of her daughters..." I've added the information, but I am doing so under protest, I don't see how it's relevant nor how it helps the section, just adds more information that's really not relevant at all. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does footnote 25 mean that the whole pedigree chart is from that source? If so, I dislike this documentation approach. I suggest a simple line of text indicating the source of the pedigree info. I suppose it could be a note or a footnote, but placing it after Chicado's name is kinda obscure. Ling.Nut (talk) 02:37, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Following previous FAs is a bad idea. Following documentation methods common in literature is a good idea. In stuff I write, the source would not be displayed like that. Do horsey journals place the notes in that manner?
  • Frankly, horse journals don't footnote pedigrees. A horse journal would have set out ALL that pedigree information in prose (along with discussions of what each ancestor did and how) and if it had been footnoted at all, it would have been in the prose. Personally, I prefer it on the pedigree, where it is. I HAVE seen this approach taken with human pedigrees in genealogy works, so there is precedent. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do pedigrees always go right to left like that? It's extremely possible; I'm just asking. Seems they do. I went to http://www.qhd.com/ to look.
  • In the pedigree, why are there asterisks in front of Kilkerrun and Chicle? Why is there an equals sign in front of Spearmint?
  • Added explanatory note, basically * means it was imported into the United States, and = means that it lived its entire life outside the United States. Because TBs are registered in many different countries, there may be many different horses in different countries with the same names, and the little symbols help distinquish them. It's a convention, that's all. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What's the difference between an AQHA Champion and a World Champion? The lead says "Two of her offspring were named Champion Quarter Running Horses", but I see four champions in her first generation,as per qhd.com's page at Three Generations of Offspring For Chicado V:
  • Anchor Chic:; (Stallion); 0353550; (Anchor Watch (TB) x Chicado V); Race money-earner, ;
  • Chicado Chick:; (Stallion); 0185816; (Three Bars (TB) x Chicado V); AQHA Champion, '67 O;
  • Successor:; (Stallion); 0351912; (Go Man Go x Chicado V); Race money-earner, ;
  • Table Tennis:; (Mare); 0094987; (Spotted Bull (TB) x Chicado V); World Champion, '60 3 YO Race Filly;
  • The Ole Man:; (Stallion); 0426041; (Three Bars (TB) x Chicado V); Race money-earner, ;
  • Three Chicks:; (Stallion); 0150624; (Three Bars (TB) x Chicado V); AQHA Champion, '66 O;
  • Triple Chick:; (Stallion); 0072953; (Three Bars (TB) x Chicado V);
  • War Chic:; (Stallion); 0075870; (War Bam (TB) x Chicado V); World Champion, '58 2 YO Race Colt Ling.Nut (talk) 03:41, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • QHD is not a reliable source for those records, I took the records off the official AQHA records. AQHA champion is a show title. Champion Quarter Running (or "World Champion" as QHD says) is a racing title. You'll note that I said she had two "Champion Quarter Running Horses" which she did. She also had two AQHA Champions, which are showing titles and not nearly so prestigious. Frankly, QHD is wrong in its terminology here. The only reason I've left it as an external link is that when I take it out, it comes back. It also links to more information on other horses related to her. I've added an explanatory footnote on the first main article usage of "Champion Quarter Running Horse" Ealdgyth - Talk 12:27, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "She set three speed records " should that be, she set two, and equaled one?
  • It's fixed. To note, that disambig page was just created 30 August 2009, for a redlink. Surely we'd be better off with a hatnote and no disamb page? I kinda doubt that anyone is going to dispute that the breed is the primary usage... but whatever. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:31, 1 September 2009 (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 Karanacs 15:59, 1 September 2009 [16].

Tom Swift

Nominator(s): Ricardiana (talk) 06:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


I am nominating this for featured article status because, after very thorough and helpful reviews from Nikkimaria, Brianboulton, and Jonyungk, I believe that it meets the criteria. If not, I would still like to continue to improve the article, and receiving feedback here will help me to do that. Best, Ricardiana (talk) 06:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support: This article is a thorough and highly enjoyable overview of its subject, much like the articles on The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, and as such is thoroughly researached and well written. It deserves at least consideration, if not promotion, to featured article status. Jonyungk (talk) 12:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tom Swifties are mentioned in the "Cultural impact" section. Ricardiana (talk) 20:43, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I could've sworn I didn't see them! Anyway, hands down great work. ceranthor 21:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! the article owes much to great reviewers. Ricardiana (talk) 21:32, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support with a few comments for improvement: first, the intro is kind of short per WP:Lead, as it is now well over 32 kb; second, I would still argue for a few more internal links. Also, I'm unsure of the alt text guidelines: is alt text recommended for these images or not? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could you be more specific as to what you suggest be added to the lead, and what should be linked? I'm not sure about alt text guidelines - it's never come up for me before. I'll see what I can find out. Ricardiana (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My comment about the lead was based not on what I feel to be lacking, but on general guidelines - articles of this size should have a 3-4 paragraph lead per WP:Lead. You could potentially add length by a) giving a brief overview of the different series, b) mentioning criticism of the series, or c) simply expanding slightly what's already there, but these are just suggestions. As for internal links, possibilities include: diesel electric locomotive, house trailer, any of the listed writers that have articles (I didn't check to see if they did), photo telephone (or whatever the proper term is), Jews (since African-Americans is linked), the Bible...I'm sure there are plenty of possibilities for helping to WP:Build the web. I, too, was unsure about the alt text...I just remember other FACs being criticized for the lack of appropriate alt text. Anyways, this is a great article, and I think it deserves the FA star. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 03:47, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Nikkimaria, for all your suggestions. I'll comb over the article and make some changes. Ricardiana (talk) 16:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Brianboulton has kindly offered to help with fixing these. I will also do what I can. Ricardiana (talk) 16:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was tougher than I thought, with these highly ornamented book covers, but I have added alt text to each of the images. My efforts will no doubt benefit from a bit of tweaking, but there you go. Hope to comment on the nom tomorrow.Brianboulton (talk) 23:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you very much for doing this, Brian; I think it looks great. I especially like the description of the last cover - I hadn't realized until this issue came up how hard that cover would be to describe, and "struggling" works very well, I think. Ricardiana (talk) 00:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that was a good job. I spotted only one major problem: unnecessary duplication with caption (they are normally read together, so alt text shouldn't duplicate the caption; see WP:ALT #What not to specify). I tweaked it to fix that, and also to make it a tad briefer. Thanks again. Eubulides (talk) 04:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I gave a lot of attention to this article during its peer review, and my concerns were adequately answered then. It reads strongly and fluently, and is an excellent addition to Ricardiana's early work in this genre. I have just a few final quibbles/questions:-

  • Authorship section: In this section, author information is only given for the first two series, so is "Authorship" the best name for the section? Or is it possible to mention who were the writers of the last three series?
Hmm. Well, I couldn't find reliable sources on the authorship of the last three. I'm not sure what else to call the section, though ... maybe "Creation"?
  • Series section: the intro (beginning "Five different series featuring Tom Swift...") merely repeats what we have just read, so is it necessary?
No. I just thought there had to be some text between a level two header and a level three one, but I've taken this out. Ricardiana (talk) 17:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Third series (1981-1984): It would be interesting to know if the racial stereotyping evident in the earlier series is present in this and later series.
I agree. Unfortunately, reliable sources on the last three are hard to come by. I put in what I could. I haven't myself read much of the last three - I would say the problem was resolved in much the same way as in other Stratemeyer Syndicate books - by mostly eliminating non-white characters (although the third series does have a Native American character). Ricardiana (talk) 17:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Books: A missing word: "...a half-dozen more in the most [*] series, Tom Swift, Young Inventor,..." Is it "recent"?
Yes - added. Ricardiana (talk) 17:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cultural impact: Fourth paragraph begins "The series has..." I take this comment to refer to all five series, in which case "has" is wrong. "The series have..." sounds wrong, but if you were to say "The five series have been criticised for their views...", that sounds OK.
I changed this to "books" only because the critic is mostly talking about the second series, with a little of the first thrown in, and, like most writers on TS, doesn't mention the latter three series. Ricardiana (talk) 17:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Worthy of promotion on all counts, I think. Brianboulton (talk) 13:21, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Brian, for your support and all of your comments. Ricardiana (talk) 17:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links not checked with the link checker tool, as it was misbehaving. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As stated at the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys FAQs, James Keeline has written a number of essays of Stratemeyer Syndicate series which rely on archival research and which have been published in journals that are indexed in the MLA. Ricardiana (talk) 04:09, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Probably a good idea to remind me of this when you bring the next one of these sorts of FACs... I'm getting old, I can only remember so much (and it's not a broad enough subject to put him on my cheatsheet). I'll leave this out for other reviewers to decide for themselves, but I lean reliable. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I will keep that in mind. However, I mentioned that this issue has come up twice before, not as some sort of rebuke or slur on your memory, but in order to establish that consensus has in fact been reached before, and, by naming the specific articles on which it was reached, to enable anyone looking at this FAC to look up the previous discussions and see what was said. Ricardiana (talk) 18:13, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
  • What's the point of the piped link pen name in the Authorship seciont? Nothing wrong with this, but it struck me as odd.
I was asked to link this by a previous reviewer. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Simon and Schuster produced two other Tom Swift series: one, published from 1991 to 1993, and the Tom Swift, Young Inventor series, begun in 2006." Shouldn't the comma between Swift and Young be changed to an endash? I'm not a grammar expert, but something about that sentence doesn't sound right. Just throwing that out as a possible reason. Regardless, you should be consistent, in the Fifth Series section, the series is titled with colon, not a comma.
The fifth series is spelt this way on the cover of the books. The colon was inserted by some other editor; I've fixed it. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overlink, As racist redirects to racism, this term is linked twice in the Original series section. I'd remove the 1st link, as it is inside a direct quote.
Good catch; thank you. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Stratemeyer Syndicate employee Andrew Svenson described the new series as based "on scientific fact and probability, whereas the old Toms were in the main adventure stories mixed with pseudo-science",[26] and three Ph.D.s in science were hired as consultants to the series to ensure scientific accuracy.[12]" should be split into two sentences.
"Should" is wording it strongly. I agree, however, that two sentences is better here. Changed. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • The fifth series section is very short. Suggest either expanding this section (preferred) or merging with another section.
There are no further reliable sources with which to expand the section; keeping the section separate is in keeping with the structure of the rest of the article. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Books, television, and other media" is an awkward title. Here's my suggested fix: Re-title "Other media", make the sub-section "Books" the introductory paragraph of the "Series" section above.
I like that suggestion - thank you. Changed. Ricardiana (talk) 05:52, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it reads better this way. The only further suggestion I could make, is I think with the new order, the level 3 heading under "Other media" is now un-necessary.
  • "; no film, however, was made -> IMO "; however, no film was made" sounds better.
I appreciate your opinion; however, in my opinion, the way it is is fine. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • , but, for unknown reasons, the series was never produced.
That is how the sentence was written originally; I was asked to insert the phrase you've struck out during previous reviews. Ricardiana (talk) 05:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I still think it reads better without, but It's not a big deal.
  • First sentence of Cultural impact, shouldn't the parenthesis be changed to en-dashes? (might want to double check with someone more knowledgeable about grammar).
No. A parenthetical clause may be set off by parentheses as well as by dashes. What I have is perfectly correct. Ricardiana (talk) 05:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "1910: by 1914" That's not the proper use of a colon. I would break this up into two sentences.
What is "improper" here? Please cite a rule. Ricardiana (talk) 05:46, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I retract this. WP:MOS#Colons does show an example of colon usage similar to this statement. It's just not a usage I'm familiar with.
  • In explaining the change from TSER to taser the "'A'" is upper case but taser is lower case. IMO the cases should match.
Taser is routinely spelt this way, in this article and in other reliable sources; the original acronym of TSER is spelt in all caps in the cited article. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, my question is should the "'A'" be downcased to match the casing of taser? I don't know the answer, just asking.
  • The stray sentence at the end of the article should probably be moved up to the proceeding paragraph.
Agreed. Changed. Ricardiana (talk) 05:49, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm surprised there isn't a rebuttal to the criticisms of the series pointing out that these ideas were acceptable and even popular in their time. Do your sources support such a statement?
I cite only statements made in reliable sources. My sources, of course, say what I say they say. There are no other sources. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not doubting your sourcing. Should future research turn up a source with rebuttals to these criticisms, I think that should be included.
  • I'm concerned about this source [17] The publisher appears to be a personal website, and the posting of an entire page of Time magazine may be a copyright violation. Have you asked our non-free content experts if this is ok?
Awadewit, who is an expert on this kind of thing, reviewed this article and found no problem with the scan. In any case, the Times' content is available through databases; I've cited to this website rather than a database b/c it is accessible to anyone, not just university students/faculty. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for checking, just wanted to be sure.
  • Keeline.com is a personal website. Does Mr. Keeline have sufficient credentials to comply with those guidelines? (I'm sure Ealdgyth either has or will bring this up)
This has already been brought up, by Ealdgyth, above, and I have given my answer, also above. Ricardiana (talk) 05:43, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, if Ealdgyth is happy, I'm happy.

That's about it. Interesting read, these issues are mostly minor prose issues that can be easily fixed. Thanks for putting effort into this article.Dave (talk) 05:15, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you - and thank you for the time and effort you put into reviewing it. Ricardiana (talk) 05:48, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Responded in-line. My concerns are resolved.Dave (talk) 17:12, 28 August 2009 (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 Karanacs 15:59, 1 September 2009 [18].

Neil Harvey with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948

Nominator(s): YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Another of the {{Invincibles Advert}}. Neil Harvey was the youngest member of the team and his century in the Headingley Test stopped the English attack, which had seized the initiative. Australia recovered to restore parity in the first innigns and finished off a the match with a world record. He was also known for his dazzling fielding YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:43, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment As per CI, Miller hit two sixes in the first inns at Leeds. As per the article : "with Miller taking the lead. He hoisted off spinner Jim Laker's first ball over square leg for six." and "Miller then lifted Laker for a six over long off, and another over long on from Yardley to reach 54". Tintin 08:04, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Add - the hits off Yardley were two fours, as per Arlott.
Ok, Fingo is probably wrong then in this case. What is Arlott's book?? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*Comment2 "Harvey’s knock had taken 177 minutes and included 14 fours." - 188/17 as per CI, please cross check. Tintin 08:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC) [reply]

Add - the stands with Miller and Loxton were of 90 & 95 minutes. So 188 is the more sensible number. Tintin 08:13, 19 August 2009 (UTC) Misread the thing. 177 seems to be the time taken to reach 100.[reply]
I'll make it clearer. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment3 Did Bradman deliberately let Harvey hit the winning boundary ? Vaguely remember seeing something like that somewhere. That would be worth a mention because of what happened at Oval. Tintin 08:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Harvey just jokes in interviews that he is responsible for 99.94 and quips that he should have not scored and yielded. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I waited for two supports. Last year I waited for one and didn't get yelled at. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. Giants2008 (17–14) 02:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments –
  • Early tour: "so Australia were effectively six wickets down and faced its first loss to an English county since 1912." Tense conflict with "were" and "its". I'd change the second because the remainder of the article uses plural.
  • "including two leaping catches in the second innings with his hands above his heads." Harvey had two heads? :-)
  • Fourth Test: "Harvey was called into the team for the Fourth Test at Headingley at the expense of the Barnes." One "the" too many.
  • "This allowed Australia to seize the initiative, with Harvey joined the counterattack during the next over". Last part is off.
  • "Loxton came in to join Harvey at 4/189, who continued to attack...". Might be better if "at 4/189" was moved to the start of the sentence, placing Harvey before "who".
  • Fifth Test: the previous The Oval link is only a few paragraphs above, meaning this one can safely be removed.
  • Later matches: "part of a collapse in which Australia lose their last seven wickets for 89 to end at 361." "lose" → "lost" to ensure past tense. Giants2008 (17–14) 02:37, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. Thanks again YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:49, 26 August 2009 (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 Karanacs 15:59, 1 September 2009 [19].

Ernie Toshack with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948

Nominator(s): YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


One of the main members of the Invincibles, played in four of the five Tests until his knee broke down. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the ambig with season and tour; I guess if I look it up there were no other wins bigger than inns and 451 YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 05:28, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Support

  • I am not familiar with this epic run of Yellow Monkey's Invincibles' articles, so i am sure someone will jump in if they think I'm out of line here. All WP articles I would have thought should be reasonably self-contained: they should make sense in their own right. The body text beings "Towards the end of the Test series against Indian in 1947–48 in Australia, knee injuries had begun to hamper Toshack,..." At which point I'm thinking "who's Toshack? Bowler or batsman?" etc. My understanding - i've had an interchange with User:SlimVirgin about this - is that the lead is supposed to summarise the body of the article. Reversing that statement, therefore, the article body of the text should tell me everything that is summarised in the lead. It doesn't. The body text assumes i know this is about Cricket, about a tour to England, what sort of cricketer Toshack was (batsman, bowler) etc etc. I think the background needs to lunch in less abruptly.
Added a more comprehensive background on Toshack's cricket career. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 06:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor point - something is seriously wrong with the note before the references.
I had to come to an agreement with some other users who objected to me using a large grouped ref in the text, so a solution was made up to get one cite to link to a separate grouped cite numbers. Simply grouping 30 refs in one ref markup would not have worked because the refs were reused then we would have printed the same 30 refs in full twice YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 06:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • That may be the case, but it is incomprehensible to a reader. They get to a sentence in the last para, which says "...invariably being placed at either No. 10 and No. 11 in the order alongside Johnston,[1] another tailender with little batting ability.N-[1]", and this strange N-1 thing points down to a string of footnote cite tags. No text at all. Even with the benefit of your initial response above I have no idea what this is about. Why do you need to cite all these matches to support this sentence? Is there seriously no analysis (in the sporting pages of the papers in1948-49 for example, let alone the books about this famous team) that would substantiate the preceding remark? However, if the note is necessary, please provide some text for it (here and in all the similar articles, if this is a system across these individual articles) so that a reader coming to this cold can make sense of it. It should be easily done, either as text in the note, or as article text directly beneath the "Statistical note" heading. hamiltonstone (talk) 11:34, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Added a note. Nobody bothered to write that down in the book explcitly as they simply said that Toshack was more or less useless with the bat. With Tests, you can query the Statsguru summariser on Cricinfo, but this is not available for the tour matches. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: I'm going to be a grammar Nazi (to the benefit of the article) so try to put up with my comments:
    • The first paragraph of the lead is just confusing. "went undefeated in their 34 matches", is this talking about Ernie or the Aus Cricket Team? If it's the latter I assume you want "was undefeated in its 34 matches" or similar. If it's the former, distinction needs to be made because the sentence runs: Ernie, Aus, Ernie, with no obvious break.
Fixed YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Background: "played in every Test over the next two summers, fitness permitting". Isn't that stating the obvious? Doesn't everyone play, fitness permitting? How many did he actually miss due to injury?
Well they can be dropped in favour of a another player if he plays badly. He missed three. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Does "1948 tour of England" need to be linked as "1948 Ashes series"?
No, the tour is linked to the tour and the 1948 is a subarticle of it YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • " ": From and including: "The tour was to guarantee him immortality as a member of Bradman's Invincibles." I begin to lose my way:
      • Firstly, the opening sentence has two meanings for me: the tour guaranteed him a permanent place in Bradman's team, or, being part of Bradman's team guaranteed him publicity. In both cases, is "immortal" the right term to use? How about "As a member of Bradman's Invincibles, the tour was to immortalise him"?
      • "during the voyage". Which voyage is this? It's probably to England, but this is "Background", which could encompass any number of years; it's best to specify.
      • "As a result, there are still sheets in circulation with his name mis-spelt as Toshak." Why would mis-spelling be a given result of his friend signing autographs? Was Toshak his nickname or was his friend not good with a pen?
      • What is that last sentence doing there?
Removed or clarified these

Much better. Some more things:

    • Does World War II need to be wikilinked?
I link everything that is a common noun but if you want to step in then I won't revert you YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay I've removed it on the basis of familiarity with the reader and it being of little further relevance to the article. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 10:30, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Toshack again focused on the leg stump", near the bottom of "Early Tour Matches" is almost duplicated in "Role". Is this meant to happen or are there two instances of this in the tour? Or is the point of "Role" to sum up what has already been said?
Yeah, the role explains the themes of his playing role/style YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Would it not be good to have a picture in amongst the article somewhere? The article on Ernie Toshack has some good ones (no doubt you're aware of this having worked on it so much!), so is there an issue with using them?
Jappalang would object to those, as they aren't definitively pre-1946, that's why I commented them out.
Okay, won't pursue that then.

By the way, your campaign on The Invincibles for FAT is incredible. How long has it taken you to reach this stage?

A while. The "in 48" ones didn't take so long because there is a big overlap with the contents of the individual Tests, as the tour games were teh only things that had to be put in. Miller and the daughter articles took the most. Bradman took a lot of time from Phanto282 (talk · contribs) YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 09:09, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment – Three Roland Perry books are listed in the references, but only one is used as a cite. Somewhat curious as to why that is the case, and if they should be listed under Further reading instead. Prose looks okay at the start of the article, but I want to read the entire page before supporting. Giants2008 (17–14) 01:22, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Removed redudnant YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 00:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Support – Gave it a brief cleanup pass, and the article looked good. The background section was a welcome addition, and I hope to see it in other articles on the topic that reach FAC. Giants2008 (17–14) 00:08, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments

*"After the hosts recovered to 6/148, Toshack returned", "Toshack had taken 6/51 in a long spell of 27 overs" these sentences appear to contradict each other, the first suggests he came back at 6/148, the second that he bowled throughout most of the innings including during the MCC recovery.

  • Ken Cranston was an all-rounder rather than batsman.
  • "the hosts were skittled for 89" 86 according to CA.
  • Tim Lester -> Ted Lester
  • "Saggers stood up to the wickets and stumped Tim Lester before Toshack removed three more lower-order batsmen" This suggests that Lester was a low order batsman, yet he batted at five.
  • "Bradman elected to use his part-timers" Three of the four bowlers used were Johnston, McColl and Ring who aren't part-timers to me.
  • "Toshack took four catches on tour" two according to CA.
  • "As Australia's other specialist bowlers were Lindwall, McCool, Johnson and Doug Ring, all of whom made centuries and more than 20 fifties each during their first-class career" Lindwall had 19 and Ring 20.

--Jpeeling (talk) 17:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed all of these. I shoudl ahve checked the card before taking Fingo at face value that Ring and McCool were part-timers. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Should any of this be hyphenated?
  • A left arm medium pace seam bowler ...
Sure. I never consciously thought about hyphens, but all my other articles have hyphens, so I don't know what happened in writing this article
  • What is "Toshack was a member of the first-choice XI," first-choice XI?
Easier to just say team. XI in a team, he was in the first-choice team, ie, not a bench YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:25, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What does 5/40 mean ?
  • his most notable performance was the 5/40 ...
There is a footnote attached to this. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:25, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support - Don't know much at all about Toshack and was an interesting read. This sentence in 'First Test' seems slightly awkward, "During the second innings, Bradman thought that rain might come so he utilised Toshack to bowl defensive leg theory." Anyway maybe it's just me. Aaroncrick (talk) 11:05, 31 August 2009 (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 Karanacs 15:59, 1 September 2009 [20].

Rudolf Caracciola

Nominator(s): Apterygial 00:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]


My first attempt at writing about this oft-neglected era of motorsport. Thanks go to 4u1e for the comments and Malleus Fatuorum for the copyedit. If possible, I'd like to get the article on the main page for the 28th of September, the 50th anniversary of his death. Please note that one image (File:Caratsch.jpg) is lacking sourcing information, but SoWhy has contacted the original uploader (an admin on de.wiki) and we are currently awaiting a reply. Apterygial 00:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment For the "Complete European Championship results" table, we can't use bold as a symbol per WP:MOSBOLD. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:34, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's a convention used across all motorsport articles, so changing it's not a small thing. I can't see anything in MOSBOLD, which seems to be mainly concerned with article text rather than tables, that forbids it. Surely it's just another 'special case' like the other examples listed there? It's certainly the neatest, simplest way of getting the information across without clutter or confusion. 4u1e (talk) 06:55, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 17:05, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Does this page make a case for reliability? Also, it's just a quote from someone, not original writing on the part of the website, and quoted from Neubauer's book (which I don't have access to). Apterygial 02:02, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll leave this one out for other reviewers to decide for themselves. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:26, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not familiar with the website, but it does seem to include some respectable writers on its roster - former BBC Top Gear presenter Chris Goffey, for one. 4u1e (talk) 16:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am satisfied with the reliability of the source. The list of contributors on the website includes numerous people from a defunct reliable TV program. Also, it's a quote, not a contentious fact which would require a HIGHLY reputable source. Royalbroil 12:44, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The author of the piece being referenced, Ross Finlay, has had works published by the Reader's Digest and the Automobile Association amongst other journalist credits. I'm content that this reference is reliable. AlexJ (talk) 22:55, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Very nice and engaging article. Well written and appears comprehensive, well-researched and compliant with MOS. Some minor points that I would like to see addressed:
-I'd prefer to see the following opinions removed or attributed to someone:
"Perhaps his only real disappointment in 1932"
"From here, he might have been able to see Seaman leave the track at the same corner"
"He has a reputation of a perfectionist, who very rarely had accidents or caused mechanical failures in his cars, who could deliver when needed regardless of the conditions."
-"the Clerk of the Course ordered Caracciola to cede the lead to Rosemeyer on the ninth lap." Why?
-1939 championship - perhaps mention who declared Lang champion, and why Muller has a claim. 4u1e (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments – Just a few quickies, since it's late in America and I'm tired. Hopefully I can find time in the next day or two to copy-edit the rest, if needed.
  • A lot of sentences in the first paragraph start with "He". Can some variety be introduced?
  • "and also set speed records for the firm." Little redundant word that can be chopped out.
  • Support with minor alterations by User:Royalbroil
    • Is there a translation for Caratsch?
    • define or wikilink "works driver", "reserve driver", "Clerk of Course". Could be links to List of motorsport terminology.
    • "Like many early motor racing drivers, he was descended from aristocracy" says the same thing as "Motorsport in Germany at the time, as in the rest of Europe, was an exclusive sport, mainly limited to the upper classes." The thoughts should be next to each other to build on each other. Or they could be separate if you don't repeat the thought that early motor racing drivers were rich.
      • I think they are fairly different thoughts. Caracciola was descended from aristocracy, but that went back centuries, and I don't really think he could be considered upper class. His parents owned a hotel, after all, and they probably weren't terribly rich. I can't imagine any Princes working as apprentices at an automobile factory! Apterygial 06:56, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "started from the back row of the grid (decided by a ballot)" - the ballot part is unnecessarily confusing and probably not needed because it begs questions. Why was there a ballot and who voted? The fans? The drivers?
    • "to refill his car with petrol, ruled him out of contention" should be some rewording. "ruled him out of contention" is technically not correct (who ruled that he's out of contention?). It did place him too far behind to recover.
    • "after their car's generator burnt out" generator should be wikilinked to Alternator#Automotive_alternators because I think it's too technical for a non-motorsport enthusiast. There are other more common engine parts like valve, axle, etc. that you should consider wikilinking.
    • "Alfa Romeo's dominance was so great the team could choose the top three positions" - what does this mean?
    • reason for Chiron's firing is too far off-topic "ostensibly for refusing to stay at the same hotel as the rest of the team" Royalbroil 04:01, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Removed. It's a great story though. :) Thanks for the review so far. Apterygial

Support I am satisfied that all of my concerns were addressed. Royalbroil 23:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment – My run-through to clean up various minor prose issues has gone slower than I would have liked, but I am getting there. There is one sentence, however, that I can't fix without knowledge of the subject: "He transferred to a private clinic in Bologna, where his injuries remained in plaster for six months." I'm pretty sure his body parts were in the cast, and the sentence should say that. Giants2008 (17–14) 17:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please be specific and change your proposed sentence to say "... in a plaster cast for six months". Just saying plaster is too informal - I'd be wondering: a plaster what-huh??). Royalbroil 12:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think that's a little harsh, Royal. 'In plaster' is perfectly normal (and formal) usage for a plaster cast, and very unlikely to be confused with a sticking plaster. 4u1e (talk) 14:17, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sorry if you took my comment to be harsh or crude, certainly it was not my intention. I've never heard the usage "in plaster" to mean "in a plaster cast" - maybe it's not formal enough in American English but is fine in Australian and British English. It reads as way too informal to this American. I hope that you change it - if it reads as informal to part of the world, don't you want change it to something that equally as good to you and better in the world view? Royalbroil 02:08, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have changed it. Looks like another one of those irritatingly common differences between British English (of which Australian English is a subset) and American English. I've never thought of "in plaster" as being either informal or ambiguous. Apterygial 07:21, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments I like this article. Very cool. Not a big motor sports fan, but the old stuff is intriguing to me. In terms of scope and focus, this is terrific. I'm not going to comment on the sources, 'cause I don't know the literature well. Your images are appropriate, and well spaced, although I do think some of them could be bigger, because it is hard to see what they are in the thumb size. Writing I do know something about, and here are my comments on that. Please bear in mind these are niggling little comments, for the most part, relating to clarity, etc. I do think your use of commas is minimalist, and normally I'd use more, but my friends call me the "comma-kazi" (and I call them "comma-tose"). sb=should be

*...which ruled him out of racing for more than a year... sounds like it was a rule...how about eliminated him from racing....

*Mercedes-Benz racing team in 1934, with whom...sb with which....

ah....American vs Queen's English.

*Motorsport in Germany at the time, as in the rest of Europe, was an exclusive sport, mainly limited to the upper classes. redundant

  • well, I still disagree. How about eliminating this part from the first paragraph: " Like many early motor racing drivers, he was descended from aristocracy;" First, you don't have a cite for it...do we know how many others there were, and secondly, it's distracting. The important thing you're explaining here is how that Italian name ended up on a German. Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:36, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*As the sport became more professional in the early 1920s, specialist drivers, like Caracciola, began to dominate it (missing)

*Need to write out AVUS the first time.

*Later in 1923, he was hired by Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft shouldn't the name be in English? piped link?

*Rosenberger lost control at the North Curve on the eighth lap when trying to pass a slower car, and crashed into the timekeepers' box, killing all three occupants, but Caracciola kept driving.... but? how about omitting the but (since you have the same structure in the next sentence but one). Caracciola kept driving. (and what happened to Rosenberger?)

*He was surprised, when he crossed the 20th and final lap, to have won the race. He wasn't surprised to be finish the race, certainly....?

then the sentence is awkward, then. could you clean it up a bit? Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sticking my oar in again (sorry Ap!): "When he finished the 20th and final lap, he was surprised to find that he had won the race"? 4u1e (talk) 19:01, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No worries, 4u, I've changed it to your suggestion. It's always good to get more eyes in. Apterygial 00:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*...However, a lengthy pit stop, which took four and a half minutes to refuel his car, left him unable to recover the time, and he eventually finished third

  • Caracciola and Chiron drove into a ditch at the side of the road to avoid the debris; while Chiron was able to continue Caracciola drove into a tree. huh???? How about: To avoid the debris, Caracciola and Chiron both drove off the road; Chiron was able to continue in the race after pushing his car out of a ditch, but Caracciola had driven into a tree.
    • I don't think Chiron got out, he must have rocketed out from the ditch back onto the circuit (this kind of crazy thing happened a lot in the early days) while Caracciola drove along the ditch for a bit and crashed into the tree. Apterygial 04:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
how spectacular that was! Can you clean it up a bit to clarify it? To avoid the debris, C and C drove into a ditch; Chiron drove out the other end, but C hit a tree and was out of the race. Or something....
I've changed it to something like that. Apterygial 00:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • ...the local fleet of Alfa Romeos battled for the lead early in the race, but when they fell back Caracciola was able to take control. .... How about splitting it in two. When they fell back, Caracciola was able to take control....

*with ten laps remaining in the race Caracciola was so close he could see Nuvolari changing gears. It was in this manner that the race finished. awkward .....how about .... For the last ten laps of the race, C. was so close he could see Nuvolari changing gears.

*Avusrennen. translate, or explain.

  • ...where his injuries remained in a plaster cast for six months? His injuries remained in a cast? *Where did his hip go? Presumably it was in the cast?
other reviewers stumbled over this sentence, so it should be a clue that it's not universally accessible at first, or even second, read. I realize it's probably the difference between our colloquialisms, but you're saying his injuries remained in a cast. It gives me the giggles, like the rest of him wasn't in the cast, just his injuries. Obviously, you mean his injured parts, but they didn't remove the parts from the rest of him, so he remained in a cast too. How about his injured hip remained in a cast?
"where his leg remained in a plaster cast for six months"? 4u1e (talk) 19:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"he remained in a plaster cast" makes me giggle, imagining Rudi completely enveloped by plaster for six months... I appreciate your logic that other reviewers have had a problem with the sentence at the moment, but your suggestion just confuses me. He injured his thigh, not his hip. Perhaps "his injured leg remained in a plaster cast"? Apterygial 00:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • YES! :)


*Charlotte was able to take her husband back to Arosa, where the altitude and fresh air would aid his recovery. Charlotte took....?

*Alfred Neubauer, the Mercedes racing manager, travelled to the Caracciolas' chalet in Lugano in November with a view to signing him for the...I'm sure there was a great view at the chalet in Lugano, but probably he planned to sign him. I think "view to signing him" is probably slang?

*A visit from Chiron encouraged him otherwise, and despite his initial reservations he was persuaded to drive the lap of honour ... A visit from Chiron encouraged him to return to racing, and, despite his initial reservations, he was persuaded to drive the lap of honour (also, needs clarification, lap of honour?)

*Charlotte died when the party she was skiing with in the Swiss Alps was hit by an avalanche. .... Charlotte died in an avalanche in the Swiss Alps....? too much detail.

*.... (desert race)....from his crash in Monaco two years before, and that he was now back among the contenders

* Although the chassis of the W25 was shortened, and the engine was significantly upgraded to 4.74 litres, but the car proved inferior to the Type C developed by Auto Union

* Following the AVUS race, Caracciola, along with Rosemeyer, Nuvolari and Mercedes' new driver, Richard Seaman,

* ....but in a practice for the race, Caracciola was hit on the head by an object, believed to be a bird, and crashed into the south wall. The organisers had insisted he wear a tank driver's helmet, which saved his life; despite this precaution, he suffered a severe concussion and was in a coma for several days

    • "in practice" is very common in motorsport writing, as it takes place at designated times and is always part of a race weekend, unlike the more informal practice sessions in other sports. I think the comma breaks up the flow of the sentence a liitle too much, and seems a little redundant. Apterygial 04:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
you've managed to keep jargon out of the article, mostly, so I suggest you fix this in some way so it is not "common motorsport writing"....
"During a practice session..." Long, but prob the only way to define it. 4u1e (talk) 19:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Apterygial 00:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

* Like most German racing drivers in Nazi Germany, Caracciola was a member of the NSKK.[117] The primary function of the NSKK was as a paramilitary organisation of the Nazi Party devoted to motor racing and motor cars, and during the Second World War it handled transport and supply logistics. Awkward. How about... Like most German racing drivers in Nazi Germany, Caracciola had joined the NSKK, a paramilitary organization of the NSDAP devoted to motor racing and motor cars; during the war, it handled transport and supply.

* ...despite strict currency controls his salary was paid... needs comma: and, despite strict currency controls, his salary...

*During the war, he continued to receive a pension from Daimler-Benz until 1942, when the firm ceased his payments under pressure from the Nazi party Confusing. The NS-regime pressured the DB to stop his pension payments in 1942

*Links: German Grand Prix, Italian Grand Prix, etc., all have pages, yet you link them to the year, not the page?

    • I prefer to link to the more specific page. I could use the links without piping, but it would mean the same year is repeated several times across the same paragraph, and would grow redundant and vaguely annoying after a bit. Apterygial 04:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
ah, so there will eventually be pages for each Grand Prix year? good to know. Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There should be pages now. There's one for every World Championship GP. 4u1e (talk) 19:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
SOrry - brain fade. There are pages for all post-1950 races, but not yet for all pre-1950 ones. 4u1e (talk) 10:33, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There should be a page for each European Championship race (although there wasn't too many of them). Apterygial 21:38, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These are not major, in fact they are somewhat niggling details, but will help the overall readability, I think....Auntieruth55 (talk) 22:44, August 29, 2009

Thanks. Where I haven't changed according to your suggestion, I've attempted to explain why. Apterygial 04:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Apterygial, the things I still have questions/comments about are not crossed out, and I've spaced between them so you can find them more easily. Auntieruth55 (talk) 17:36, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think I've got them now, apart from that plaster one. Apterygial 00:01, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

SUPPORT. This is a very interesting article to read, even for a non-motorsports fan. the writing is nicely done, easy to read, and it has a good tone. The links seem appropriate, and easy to follow. I cannot comment on the sources. The pictures work with the flow of the text. All in all, definitely ready for prime time. And Aptery is a delight to work with. I've learned a lot about Australian slang ;) For the sake of "transparency," I should say that the editor and I discussed this on my user talk page, and reached the conclusion that if half the English speaking world understood it, and the other half didn't, then it probably should be fixed so that all (or at least most) of the English speaking world understood it. The issue over the plaster cast was not just "plaster cast" but how the plaster cast was used (what was encased in it). Auntieruth55 (talk) 14:09, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, it was good working with you. Apterygial 21:38, 31 August 2009 (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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