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Talk:Charles Grafton Page/GA1

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 12:10, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]


I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:10, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Images are appropriately tagged. Sources are reliable, with one exception noted below; there are two links to researchgate but the articles there were published elsewhere.

  • Mganga (2013) is a Weebly page; this means it's self-published, doesn't it? If so this is not a reliable source.


  • You have a stray </ref> tag at the end of the listing of Christopher Long's information in the source list.


  • We say Page "continued to reside in his parents' Salem home in Virginia from 1838" and also that in 1838 his father "relocated his entire family to Fairfax County in rural Virginia". Was Page's practice in Salem or Fairfax county? If he moved with his family, then "continued to reside" is a bit misleading. I see from the next paragraph that he had a practice in Fairfax County; did he also have one in Salem as we imply?


  • "he was forced to sell off his prized possession": suggest not making the reader wait to the next sentence to see what this is. Perhaps "His new career was not very fruitful and in 1840 he was forced to sell off his prized possession, entomological cabinet insect collection, to support himself. He ran an ad for it in Silliman's Journal, selling it for $400 (equivalent to $10,900 in 2021)."


  • "throughout the regimes of Charles Mason (1853-1857)": presumably "regime" refers to the fact that these men were Commissioner of Patents. If so I would tell the reader that, but why do we need to know who was commissioner while Page worked there?


  • "Page was most prosperous as a patent agent 1853, 1854, and 1855 handling up to 50 successful patents a year": looks like this should be "...agent in 1853...", but why "prosperous"? Did the number of successful patents he handled affect his income?


  • "Crucial to Page's research with the spiral conductor was his capacity to explore and question the unknown, where the physical effects were enigmatic and the theories developed inadequate": Does this just mean he was a good researcher? If so I would say it that way, if we have a good source; it seems like vague puffery as it stands. Looking at the source it's Page himself though; we shouldn't be sourcing praise of him to his own writings. The next sentence, about the role of ambiguity, also seems a bit vague; do we really need this discussion?


  • What is a "musical harmonic telephone"?
  •  Done -- My career was as an electronic engineering technician and to me the reference (Prescott 1884, pp 402-427) describes the operation and mechanics of a loudspeaker and how it works off a coil of wire and a powerful magnet. I linked those words to Loudspeaker. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:24, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]


  • "Page invented many other electromagnetic devices as an astute observer and exploratory scientist experimenter": the second half of this is just praise; I would suggest cutting it.


  • "the first American to practice in magnetic philosophical instruments": what does "practice" mean here? Manufacture and sell? And what is a "philosophical instrument"? If this is what we'd today call a scientific instrument, I think we need to explain that to the reader.


  • Not necessary for GA, but the "Scientific accomplishments" sections is quite long and would benefit from subsections.


  • "One was a mechanical vibrating interrupter (Figure 1)": there's no "Figure 1" label on the relevant image. Similarly for Figure 2.


  • "of the input wires of the other set of wires": looks like editing debris?


  • "resulting from effects Page later had investigated as problems with the spiral conductor": "later had"? If he investigated these problems later, why "had"?


  • "calamity-laced" seems a bit strong; it didn't work well, but nobody was hurt and it didn't crash.


  • "were impostors and their disciples as pushovers": what does "disciples as pushovers" mean? And does disciples refer just to members of the public who believed them, or something more specific? It seems to be refer to just the gullible public, in which case I'd make it "were impostors, and that those who believed them were pushovers" -- or perhaps "gullible" instead of "pushovers"?


  • "The instant the idea of the superhuman gets possession of the mind all fitness for investigation and power of analysis begins to vanish, and confidence swells to its utmost capacity. The most glaring inconsistencies and absurdities are not discerned and are swallowed whole" This should not be in Wikipedia's voice.


  • "Eloquent, combative, keen-minded and persistent, Page as a scientist made his commitments known." What's the value of this sentence? The first half is just praise; the second half is very vague -- commitments to what concerning what? Then the rest of the paragraph is vague too. Looking further down I think this is intended to summarize some of the subsequent material, but I don't think that's a good idea, or at least not if done so vaguely.


  • "Page used the journal he founded and edited": has this already been mentioned? If so I missed it.


  • At one point we say he got $30K for the electric locomotive from the government; at another we say it was $20K.


  • Why are we covering the locomotive work twice, once in the science section and once in the controversy section? There seems to be quite a bit of overlap.


  • Similarly the "Page Patent" seems to be covered twice, once at the end of the controversy section, and once under "Personal life".


-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:27, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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