Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Benjamin Franklin Tilley

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 User:SandyGeorgia 04:08, 9 June 2008 [1].

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Benjamin Franklin Tilley

Self-nom. First Governor of American Samoa. Article is A-class, has been peer-reviewed. In my opinion, the article has two flaws which I am unable to address: it does not include much in the way about personal history of Tilley (due to a lack of non-military sources) and it leans heavily toward American Samoan history (which he is best known for). Despite these flaws, I believe that the article qualifies as FA. JRP (talk) 19:00, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• To address my own concerns (above) with this article, I managed to track down additional sources on his Spanish-American war activities and expanded that section, to offset his American Samoan history. I have included what additional information I could find about his personal life. JRP (talk) 17:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments

• Current ref 23 "Tilley (2007) is lacking a publisher. Should be Governement of American Samoa, or something along those lines.
• Your access dates and publication dates are a bit inconsistent. Mostly it's year-month-day, but one at least is day-month-year ("To be a captain in the Navy" NYTimes ... current ref 20)
• Use or don't use the p. abbreviation for pages, but stick with one or the other for consistency.

Otherwise sources look good. Links all checked out fine. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the publisher for the first point and the date for the second point. Unfortunately, I don't know what I can do about the third. The issue appears to be that the citation templates for "news" and "books" are inconsistent with respect to using the p. abbreviation. Short of not using the citation templates (which I'd rather not do), I don't think I can fix it. JRP (talk) 06:08, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

You can put the "p." in the templates where the template doesn't put them in automatically. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

True! I simply hadn't thought of that. (Not that I think the templates shouldn't be more consistent with themselves "out of the box" though...) I've made the changes as you suggested. JRP (talk) 12:37, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes, not having caffeine helps in the morning, although most mornings.... Ealdgyth - Talk 12:53, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment This source seems to have a bit more regarding his early life, including an exact birthdate and birthplace. BuddingJournalist 13:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes. They actually just updated that fairly recently. (At least since I starting writing this article.) I emailed the maintainer of the site yesterday asking for his bibliography since the site has inline citations, but no key to what they mean. I was intending to use his sources directly, instead of citing a webpage, but since the page is written by the American Samoa govt. historian, it's probably fine. JRP (talk) 13:40, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I too was trying to decipher their citations. I found out that Arnold 1894 is Bristol County: Records of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Hope the USNHC: Tilley RO will be helpful (assuming the historian e-mails you back!). BuddingJournalist 13:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I have integrated the extra details from the website and have managed to find a non-web source for his marriage information. I'll continue looking for non-web sources for the other since I know the FAs are rigorous about those. JRP (talk) 00:16, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments leaning towards support, just a few prose problems.

• Lead - last sentence of the first paragraph, I think the middle phrase might be better off placed at the end of the sentence, so it'd be "At the conclusion of his 41 years of service, he was promoted to Rear Admiral, but he died shortly afterwards of pneumonia." As it stands, the pneumonia part breaks up the logical flow from "end of service to promotion".
• Early life section ... the sentence starting "After graduation..." did he graduate as a midshipman? If so, perhaps "After graduation, he served as a midshipman, at first briefly on the ..."
• Railroad strike section, I'd drop the "...and prevent damage." from the sentence starting "In response, ..."
• Same section, the sentence "Military leaders feared rioters from Baltimore traveling to the District to seize or damage vulnerable targets such as the Treasury." Something is missing here. Do you mean that "...leaders feared rioters from Baltimore were traveling..."?
• This paragraph is utterly uncited, by the way. The military leaders bit, at least, should probably be cited.
• Acting-governor section, first paragraph, the sentence staring "Ultimately, the king.." is awkward. Perhaps "Ultimately, the king agreed to cede some sovereignty to the United States, but refused to ..."
• Same section, second paragraph, the sentence starting "This was despite ..." it reads awkward, but not sure how to better word it.
• Same section, third paragraph, sentence "There were similar issues overlaying United States political structures on Samoan ones." I'm not sure what this sentence is trying to say, did you misplace a "with" between issues and overlaying?
• Same section, fourth paragraph, the sentence starting "On November 9, 1901..." did you misplace a "from" between "wife" and "visiting"? Otherwise the sentence seems awkward.
• Did he have children? Anything ever get named for him in Samoa or the US?

Over all looks pretty good. Kinda dry, but it seems like he didn't have that exciting a career, honestly. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. Not too exciting, I suppose. But it must have been quite a day to be in charge of building a naval station one day and suddenly being in charge of a territory of thousands of people and a complicated political history. The Gray book goes into quite a bit of detail of his administration, but to include too much more than this would really overbalance the article.

I have made edits for all of your suggestions except I am currently unable to find the Railroad Strike source. I was from a book dedicated to the strike, but I can't find it now. I'll keep looking. I also didn't include any record to his children yet. He had one son, also named Ben Tilley who joined the Navy, and two daughters. But... I don't know when. I'm also not aware of any things named for him. (His successor, Uriel Sebree, has about a dozen features in Alaska named for him because he was a member of the coast survey.) I'll keep digging and see if I can find something. JRP (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

FYI: I am still working on your last two suggestions, but it may not be finished before Monday. (I'm out of town this weekend.) JRP (talk) 15:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I've found the missing reference and made as many of the other changes that you suggested as I can. (Not a lot of information on BFT's family in secondary sources that I have access to.) Can you please look it over and let me know if you would like to see other improvements? JRP (talk) 05:37, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support. There are a few rough spots in the prose, but overall I think it meets the FA criteria. I did a bit of a copyedit to smooth some of the edges. This appears to be a comprehensive article, and I enjoyed reading it. Karanacs (talk) 14:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. The territorial historian of American Samoa has been kind enough to review this article for me and has found no issues with it. (He's not on Wikipedia, so did not comment here himself.) JRP (talk) 14:32, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm sorry to play the 1a) card, but, well, here it is anyway. A few examples:

• "While serving on the Frolic, he was promoted to ensign and he remained stationed there until 1869." It seems strange to use the word there in reference to a ship.

• ... the expected wave did not arrive from Baltimore ...". The expected wave of what?

• Returning to the Academy ...". The capitalisation throughout the article seems capricious. Shouldn't this be "academy" for instance?

• "... was not present for the Battle of Santiago de Cuba ...". Makes him sound like a truanting schoolboy. Not present at?

• "Construction of the naval station itself would not begin until twenty years later ...". Why not ... did not begin?

• "Under this treaty, the British government relinquished their claims ...". British government is singular.

• "Over the next year, Tilley ... accessed taxes ..." What does accessed taxes mean?

• Tilley also created a small local militia of Samoans which were trained ...". Who were trained?

I'd recommend some TLC from a sympathetic copyeditor. It's basically a pretty good article I think, but let down by the quality of its prose. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:00, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I have made some changes to address all of the concerns that you raise. I hope you will take a look and let me know any other areas where you think I can improve the prose. JRP (talk) 03:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's looking much better, but can you clarify this for me please? "Back at the academy, Tilley was promoted to lieutenant commander and appointed head of two departments: first the "Department of Astronomy, Navigation, and Surveying" and then the "Department of Mechanical Drawing". Was he head of those departments simultaneously, or one after the other? Why are the department names in quotes? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

He was appointed to those departments sequentially. I think I added quotes because someone was complaining about the capitalization, but it should be just fine without them. (I notice that someone -- not you -- has recapped all of the instances of "Acting Governor" in the article after I had uncapped them based on a reviewer comment. Obviously, there's some differences of opinion on capitalization styles...) I can't fix it now, but I can fix it when I get home tonight. JRP (talk) 21:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I've managed to fix this now. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions or concerns that I can try and fix. JRP (talk) 03:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Definitely wasn't me that re-capitalised Acting Governor, I'm very much against the wikitrend of capitalising improper nouns. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:45, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• Support. That'll do for me. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:29, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• The lead is slightly weird... it does a quick biography skim (1st para) and goes back and does it again in more detail (2nd). Makes for not-so-great reading. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 10:56, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I've rearranged it slightly, but I'll look at it further later on today. I was trying to make the first paragraph an overview with the second paragraph being a summary of the biography portions of the article, but I agree it means you read things either twice or out of order. Shifting some sentences help. JRP (talk) 11:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It's looking better, I've no objections. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 23:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Support. I have made three teeny-weeny edits [2] to a superb article. What a fascinating man and a full life. GrahamColm^Talk 19:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

OpposeSupport until the overlinking is fixed (requirement for "professional" standard of formatting). Some of the prose suffers from your being too close to it to see things that are probably unclear to most readers. Can you get someone fresh to go through it. However, I think it's a worthy piece: well done. Here are random issues (random, note).

• "As a young man of 15"—as an old man of 15?
• The top of the article is really quite heavily linked (bright blue splashed everywhere). Do we really need "commander" and "gunship" to be linked? Sp–Am. War is linked twice in the lead. And lots of other repeat links? This dilutes the high-value links. And if "Santiago" is linked, why link "Chile" next to it? Try to ration for a whole bunch of reasons.
• "before being transferred to the"—better "before his transfer to the", yes?
• "The strike sparked riots; cities such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia experienced deaths and destruction." What about this: "The strike sparked riots, with consequent death and destruction in cities such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia."
• "put down" twice in a para. Is there a synonym?
• Chronology sometimes a little fuzzy: "After the strike, Tilley was transferred to the flagship USS Powhatan before requesting a six-month leave. He married Emily Edelin Williamson, the daughter of a Navy surgeon, on 6 June 1878 and left with her on an extended honeymoon in Europe." So ... the six-month leave was for the marriage and honeymoon, we presume. Was it?
• "Tilley served in the United States Naval Academy and remained there, or on a training ship, until 1882"—this is hard; so the training ship wasn't part of the Academy or his duties for it? Readers shouldn't have to piece things together. TONY (talk) 12:31, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll work on these later on today. Thanks for your feedback. JRP (talk) 15:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. Many of these changes were made by the excellent copyediting that another editor has done today, but I picked up the rest. Can you please take a look and let me know if you see any further problems? JRP (talk) 03:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm liking this. But the USS San Francisco can't have transported troops to Santiago, as it's not a port; I'll make what I think is the obvious change. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:20, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
• I've fixed a couple of Latin America-related issues (e.g. Santiago's not a port; the Panama Canal does not go through Nicaragua). But this remains as a rather tendentious summary account of the origins of the Spanish-American war: "On April 23, 1898, Spain declared war on the United States in response to American efforts to support Cuban independence." --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:27, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
• "the deed of cession, signed on April 17, 1900, listed Manu'a as part of the United States' new territory, but was not signed." Well, was it signed or not? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
• In "Later career and death," he never actually dies. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
• In general, this is pretty good, I think. A little proseliny at times--anything that can be done to jazz up the prose would be welcome--but basically it's almost there. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 14:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll try and address your concerns later on today (can't edit right now), but to to deed of concession section, that wording has been frequently challenged and I'm not sure it has proper meaning anymore. I'll try and re-do it. What happened is that he didn't get Manua's leadership to sign the deed transferring control to the US. Being the good colonialist he was, he simply went through with the whole ceremony with Manua listed on the deed but without a matching signature and then he promptly just more or less ignored that they weren't part of the territory. It wasn't resolved until 1904. I'll let you know when I can address your concerns in the text. JRP (talk) 15:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've made all the changes you requested, though some look to have been done by another editor earlier today (thanks!). I keep working on the prose, but the other elements are better. Can you please let me know if you see further issues? JRP (talk) 03:17, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I've just seen your note here, and struck accordingly. It'd be nice to explain the origins of the Spanish-American war differently, I think, but it's not a deal-breaker as far as I'm concerned. I'll try to look over the article again in the next couple of days. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:07, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comments - great work and an interesting read. A couple things:
  • I was curious about Tilley's promotion from ensign to "master" (no wikilink) and then to lieutenant. Currently, the rank there is Lieutenant, Junior Grade. Did it used to be called "master"? Now, "master" normally refers to a Master Chief Petty Officer which is a non-commissioned rank. Is any more information available?
  • I'd prefer a clearer term than "quasi-official"; what does that mean? --Laser brain (talk) 23:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I believe that Master was an early term for Lieutenant JG, but there's no wikipedia page for it and so it didn't link it. I'll leave a note on WPMILHIST about it and see if I should just create it as a redirect or if there's a story behind it. The fact that he was promoted to "master" comes from a couple of good sources and I assume it's just a historical thing, like "commodore". JRP (talk) 21:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Also, I removed "quasi-official" since it didn't add anything. Please let me know if you have further corrections that I should make. JRP (talk) 21:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
      • I have researched some and built a stub page for the rank of master. Looks like it was in use until 1883, replaced by Lieutenant, JG. I've also wikilinked it in the article. JRP (talk) 02:49, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Comments

Gary King (talk) 21:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

• Use "pp." instead of "p." for page ranges in references.
• Fix the following disambiguation links so they point to an article: USS Lancaster, USS Powhatan, USS Tennessee, and Captain.

Gary King (talk) 20:43, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

• • References and disambiguation links fixed. Thanks for pointing them out. JRP (talk) 21:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Gary King (talk) 21:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Note: there's a problem here with inconsistent date linking in the citations (no concern about which method you use, as long as you're consistent throughout the article). For example:

• Tilley. Government of American Samoa (2007). Retrieved on May 18, 2008.
• Hamersly, Lewis Randolph (1898). The Records of Living Officers of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps (PDF), 6th ed., New York: L. R. Hamersly and co., p. 106. Retrieved on April 13, 2007.

• Date is wikilinked and displays according to user preferencs, which for me is in format Month Day, Year. Compared to:

• Miscellaneous", The New York Times, 1866-07-21, p. 6.

• Date is unlinked, ISO format. Someone else should have brought this up :-) Since dates are linked throughout the article, it would be consistent to wikify the dates in the citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:32, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Access dates are always linked in "cite web", which I don't understand. There is no navigational aid to linking to the date when an editor looked something up. Unlike, say, a date= tag on "cite news" or "cite journal" where there could be some value to looking up what else happened at the same time. (But, even that value is tenuous.) Unfortunately, I can't turn it off.

I'll wikify the dates in the citations, if you like. Can I just wikilink them in ISO format and they magically show up the right way for you or do you want them converted to MM DD, YYYY so that they show up consistently for logged out users too? JRP (talk) 03:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

That's one of the many reasons some of us hate cite templates (lack of consistency). Yes, just adding brackets around your other dates will wikify them and cause them to show up the same according to user preferences. To be completely consistent, you migth also convert those couple of dates in cite templates (Month day, year) to ISO format, and then all citations will show the same for logged out users as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

All done! Do you have any other suggestions for ways that I can improve this article? JRP (talk) 03:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Beautiful (and fast, too!) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:59, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

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