Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mathew Charles Lamb/archive1

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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 19:58, 7 January 2012 [1].

Mathew Charles Lamb[edit]

Mathew Charles Lamb (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): —Cliftonianthe orangey bit 02:17, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a newly-promoted GA which I wrote aiming for the FA criteria, which I believe it now meets. Prose, I think, is of a high standard, and I find the article to be comprehensive. I made a big effort to find contemporary newspaper sources, which I think bore considerable fruit and improved the article immensely. Judging from feedback I have received it is also well-presented and neutral, which I thought would make it a good candidate for an FA even while I was nominating it for GA. In her favourable review for GA, Dana boomer said she thought it "ha[d] a good chance at FAC", which encouraged me to nominate it. —Cliftonianthe orangey bit 02:17, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:23, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Be consistent in where you include publisher and location for newspapers
  • Check italicization: titles of works within larger works, volume and issue numbers, etc needn't be italicized. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:23, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I reasoned there was no point in me putting the location and publisher for the same paper over and over again, but okay, I've put them all back in. Okay on the other one. —Cliftonianthe orangey bit 17:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't forget page numbers, and narrowing down the ranges. Footnote 6 right now, for example, covers 25 pages. Not exactly good for verifiability. Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the quote in the lede should be referenced. Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:04, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've removed the quote from the lead and done some work on the page numbering of the Nosanchuk reference. What do you think of it now? —Cliftonian (talk) 13:11, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those issues look fine (as a side note, my mother still lives in Windsor; I've asked her to see if she can find and photograph his grave for us). I'll take a more meticulous look at the prose soon. Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:29, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • That would be very helpful. I don't believe the grave is marked, but I think it is next to his grandmother's. I'm not sure of either of these things though. Thanks for the review so far. —Cliftonian (talk) 13:32, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Scratch that. I misinterpreted the article; no name of the cemetery? Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:21, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not that I could find. It would be a Catholic cemetery but apart from that I really don't know. —Cliftonian (talk) 16:21, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Crisco 1492 moved to talk; please read the instructions at WP:FAC and avoid using templates here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:49, 20 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Comments from Jim I made a few minor edits as I read, please check the history. An interesting read, but a few niggles Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Law enforcement (x2) — is this different to "police"?
  • No, just an attempt to avoid repetition.
  • extended to bombs, which he taught himself to crudely produce using parts of various weapons. — I think you mean extended to crude bombs, which he taught himself to produce using parts of various weapons.
  • Okay.
  • relapse into recidivism and re-offend. — don't the two terms mean the same thing?
  • I suppose so.
  • 200-acre farm — needs conversion
  • Okay. Put in both km and mi.
  • black communist guerrillas — Could you check that the black organisations actually described themselves as communist? I wonder if it's a term used pejoratively by the whites.
  • I hope you think better of me than that! Yes, they did call themselves communist: in fact they were very proud of it, spending extended training courses in Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba and so on, wearing hammers and sickles and/or red stars on their caps, and obsessively reading Lenin and Marx. Each of the two major nationalist parties announced its intention to form a one-party communist state in the early 1960s. One, ZANU, became aligned to China and Maoism, while ZAPU took a pro-Soviet line. In the field the term of address for guerrilla fighters from both parties' military wings was "Comrade". Throughout the conflict members of both parties attended conferences and so forth with nameplates also marked "Comrade". In fact, even today government and military officials in Zimbabwe are referred to as "Comrade". At election time the posters beseech you to "vote for Cde. Robert Mugabe". I have put a reference to one of their own "chimurenga war communiqués" in there.
  • insanity.[2][3][26][31][35][36]... "When the Saints Go Marching In".[4][47][48] ... the remains of his grandmother.[43][49][50] — those strings of refs look awful. Please condense each to a single ref in the text, with the details in the notes. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 08:17, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, have done so. How does it look now?
  • Do on-line archived versions of newspapers need retrieval dates — just checking?
  • It's online, so I presume they do. I can't say I know for sure though.
  • If you go dead south from Detroit, the next country you get to other than the US is... Canada! (useless fact I acquired in Windsor, not actionable).
  • Images two self-made, one Fair Use with an appropriate format and rationale, one OTRS ticketed. A contemporary image would obviously be better than the reconstruction, but I suspect that a suitable free image is not likely to be available, so no issues. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:49, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support' most issues resolved. Comments

  • Early life: Linkie for "Grade 8" for us non-Canadians?
  • Okay.
  • Early life: "Under Hasketh's wing..." seems unencyclopedic to me, rephrase?
  • Okay. Have replaced with "With Hasketh's support"
  • A big concern I have with the article is that there are soooo many quotations in it. It feels at times like a bunch of quotes strung together - especially in the trial section. Is there any way that some of the quotations can be left out, or shortened? This might help make the article more engaging, as I almost lost interest in reading the article about halfway through the trial section.
  • I've taken a few of them out in the "trial section" and replaced with with paraphrasing. What do you think now?
  • Likewise, I realize that you put the quote boxes in as part of an attempt to break up the wall of text effect, but they really don't do that much since they are all identical in color.
  • I find they help; I couldn't find appropriate images, sadly. What would you suggest?
  • I cannot support at this time, because I don't find the prose engaging enough. I don't consider this an "oppose" either, but I really think the article would be best served by eliminating a number of the quotations (probably at least a third of them) and replacing that with paraphrases where appropriate. If this was my own article, I'd probably cut over a half of the quotations, but I recognize that the editors would probably have an issue with that. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:12, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • See comments above. What do you think now? Thanks for the review by the way. —Cliftonian (talk) 23:29, 3 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • It's helped. I'm comfortable with supporting. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support:

  • In "early life," you write "This violence rubbed off onto Lamb from an early age." Does the citation support the idea that his family's violent life made him violent, is is that your own conclusion? I don't doubt it, but I was wondering if the sources say that specifically.
    • Nosanchuk heavily implies it but on re-reading of his material doesn't say it explicitly. I have reworded: "Lamb started exhibiting violent traits of his own from an early age."
  • In the last paragraph of "Kingston Penitentiary", I would change "He had, Scott noted,..." to "Lamb had, Scott noted,..." just to clarify who the "he" refers to. It's fairly clear, but I had to stop while reading it and look back at the previous sentences.
    • Okay.
  • Other than that, it all looks good. Very nice article -- I enjoyed reading it. --Coemgenus (talk) 16:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotcheck for accurate representation of sources and paraphrasing is pending. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:42, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support - pending outcome of the spotchecks. I made a few minor edits to a well written, engaging contribution. No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 07:25, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks - I completed spotchecks during my GA review of this article and found no problems at that time. I just checked a few more sources, and again found no problems. (Also, nice work to Cliftonian!) Dana boomer (talk) 16:17, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Dana (general note to nominator, if you've already had a spotcheck elsewhere, pls mention that in your nom statement). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 6 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Dana, sorry Sandy. —Cliftonian (talk) 19:39, 7 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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