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Marshall Applewhite

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
I'd like to take this page to WP:FAC, and would appreciate any feedback on the article. General comments about the FA criteria criteria are sought, but specific things to be looking at include the flow, prose, and understandability. I bring up a lot of concepts to discuss the influences on him, some of which I understand more than most readers. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 22:03, 1 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments – A few nit-picks so far, from reading through about half the article.

  • Early life and education: Don't think two University of Colorado links are needed here.
  • Introduction to Nettles and friends: Can the "Around that time" at the start be made a little more specific? The last date mention is similar to this one, and it's slightly confusing.
  • May be helpful to include Raine's first name the first time he is mentioned. This goes for any other authors mentioned too (I notice Lifton is similar).
  • Nomadic lifestyle: "seeing it a record of extraterrestrial contact with humanity." Missing "as"?
  • Housing and control: Second word of "Mother's day" should be capitalized. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, good comments. I'm not too sure how to handle the intext attribution to academics, in the past I've done things like "Susan Raine of the University of Alberta states that..." but I've been wondering if that's too wordy. Hmm, will think about it. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:18, 3 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Nettles' death: First paragraph of this section has a bunch of sentences starting with "He" or similar. Consider rewording a couple of them for more variety.
      • Is "A" lacking at the start of "Relationship with Applewhite was said to be the only way to salvation"?
      • Final exit: Not sure TIME should be capitalized. Our article doesn't use them, for what that's worth.
      • Typo in note 2: "hostpital".
      • Don't notes 3 and 4 need quote marks as quotations? Giants2008 (Talk) 01:22, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments -- A very interesting article and excellently written. Because of this (and for your help in the past) I only managed a couple of small possible quibbles.

  • "He later returned to Texas, where led choruses and served as the chair of the music department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He left the University of St. Thomas in 1970, citing emotional turmoil."
Does the University need to be mentioned at the start of the second sentence bearing in mind the first one finishes with it?

*"He married Anne Pearce around that time; they had two children."

This is quite a short sentence. "And" instead of the semicolon seems more natural to use.

*Link to baritone might be useful. *"...described themselves as shepherds tending a flock"

If they described themselves as shepards tending a flock, should this description be in inverts? Is there a quote anywhere?
  • "His attempt to explain her death in the terms of the group's doctrine was successful—only one member left at this time."
It reads like there is a word missing here. Possibly "with" in place of —. Did one person leave as a result of his explaination or was one person left at the time of his explanation? Maybe that would explain my mix up. -- CassiantoTalk 19:05, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

* "Jesus had found humanity unready to ascend when He first came to the Earth..."

"He" --> "he"

I may have some of these wrong for which I apologise. This is only a brief set but a result of a thorough read. Congratulations on a great article. -- CassiantoTalk 16:16, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments, I'm not sure where that capital He came from. (In Christian writing it's not uncommon to capitalize pronouns related to Jesus, but I didn't try to do that here.) I've had two copyeditors go over the article this week and I picked and chose which changes to accept, so some things must have gotten jumbled up in that process. I might keep the emdash you mentioned above, will think about it. Thanks! Mark Arsten (talk) 17:05, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thats OK. I have further explained my emdash comment above, so if you do decide to keep it, you may wish to clarify the circumstance. All the best! -- CassiantoTalk 19:05, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ohhhhh, I see now, thanks. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:09, 6 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Eisfbnore

  • "He later returned to Texas, where led choruses and served as the chair of the music department at the University of St. Thomas in Houston." – 'where' is not a conjunction; please put a pronoun (presumably 'he') before 'led'.
  • "His father was a minister at a Presbyterian church, and as a child, Applewhite became very religious." – the clauses in this sentence are poorly connected. Also, if I'm being extremely unsympathetic, I could avow that I'm uncertain of whom 'Applewhite' refers to, the son or the father. Perhaps also mention that his exact birth date remains undisclosed/uncertain?
    • I searched again, and turned up a DOB, so that's in the article now. I changed the sentence to "The son of a Presbyterian minister, Applewhite became very religious as a child." Mark Arsten (talk) 22:10, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Applewhite attended Corpus Christi High School and Austin College. At Austin College, he was active in several student organizations and was moderately religious." – 'Austin College' is repetitive: nothing but a preposition separates the two mentions of it. I'd use 'the latter school'.

More to come. Eisfbnore (下さいて話し) 21:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the rest, after my laptop suddenly decided to log off to install a software update, without even alerting me...

  • My usual, vexing repetition checker:
  • You have eleven sentences starting with "After", of which seven are para starters, and two have the text "[After] Nettles' death, Applewhite...". Some of these could, perhaps, be replaced by "Following", "Upon", "On", etc.
  • "Applewhite" is written out quite often, though not to a repetitious or boring extent. However, I would change the last "Applewhite" to "he" in the last of these two sentences: "In the early 1990s, Applewhite posted some of his teachings on the Internet, but he was stung by the resulting criticism. That year, Applewhite first spoke of the possibility of suicide as a way to reach the Next Level." Your choice.
  • There are a few to many "taught"s in the article. These could be replaced by "lectured", "educated", etc.
  • Again playing the devil's advocate: "The two quickly became close friends; he later recalled that he felt like he had known her for a long time and concluded that they had met in a past life. She told him that extraterrestrials had visited her and predicted their meeting, persuading him that he had a divine assignment." – Whose meeting did they predict?
  • "Balch and Taylor this departure to another affair with a student." – pardon?
  • "As they traveled throughout the country, their beliefs began to solidify, and they settled on a basic outline by June 1974." – dangling participle: the sentence currently says that their beliefs traveled throughout the country. Replace the first personal pronoun ("they") with their names.
  • "Applewhite and Nettles later explained to their followers that their treatment by the press was a form of assassination and had fulfilled their prophecy." – whose treatment by the press? I'd use "the latter's" or "the former's"
  • "In the late 1970s, the group received a large sum of money, possibly an inheritance received by a member or donations of followers' income." – 'received' is repetitive.

I hope you will profit from these comments. Eisfbnore (下さいて話し) 09:40, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, good comments, thanks as always. Mark Arsten (talk) 23:20, 31 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • "Members were encouraged to constantly seek Applewhite's advice and to often ask themselves what their leaders would do when making a decision" Is it grammatically correct to say 'to often'? I would imagine it is redundant and could easily be removed
  • "Making Sense of the Heaven's Gate Sucides" spot the spelling mistake
  • "Christ And Comets" shares the same URL has "Secrets Of The Cult" under Magazines – Lemonade51 (talk) 21:58, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I gather it's somewhat conclusive that he was gay. Therefore the article needs an appropriate LGBT category
  • Do you pronounce 'Do' as 'I will do it tomorrow' or 'Doe'? Perhaps you could incorporate that phonology into note a. Lemonade51 (talk) 23:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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