Wikipedia:Peer review/William T. Anderson/archive1

William T. Anderson

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I haven't worked on a military history article before, and am probably unaware of some of the specific conventions for such articles. Also, this turned into a fairly long article, so I'd welcome advice on streamlining it/potential omissions-ambiguities and prose issues. It's currently a good article, but I hope to get it to A-class and eventually FA.

Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 00:29, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Review incoming. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:38, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)

• Lead:
  • "...earning the trust of William Quantrill and George M. Todd." The reader can assume that Quantrill was the leader of Quantrill's raiders, but who is Todd and why was earning Todd's trust important?
    • Rephrased.
  • "His service as a guerrilla resulted in the imprisonment.." Last person mentioned was Todd - I assume the "his" meant was Anderson.
    • Done.
• Early life:
  • "Mutual distrust and animosity soon developed between Northerner and Southerner immigrants to Kansas..." that first bit is really awkward - can we reword?
    • Hmm, good point, took a first try at it.
  • Given the number of times various siblings are mentioned later in the article - it'd be nice if we could have a listing of who his siblings were up here.
    • Noted
  • "Although the Anderson family did not own slaves, they supported the institution and their move to Kansas was likely motivated by economic, rather than political, interests." If they supported slavery the "and" connecting the two parts is out of place ... you're setting up a contrast here that although they supported slavery, their move to Kansas was not motivated by political support of slavery but by economic interests. Suggest "The Anderson family supported slavery, although they did not own slaves but their move to Kansas was likely motivated by economic, rather than political, interests."
    • That is tricky, I used your suggestion.
  • "By 1860, Anderson..." which Anderson - the father or the son?
    • Fixed.
• Return to Missouri:
  • "...members of the 1st Northeast Missouri Cavalry, killing nine..." be nice to show what side this unit was on.
    • Noted.
• Growing infamy:
  • "As Quantrill and Todd became less active,..." they did? This hasn't been discussed...
    • Explained.
• Death:
  • I'm failing to see the connection between the two things in this sentence... "Although he was given a fairly well-built coffin, some of the Union men cut off one of his fingers to get a ring."?
    • Yeah, I guess that's not clear, split.
• General :
  • I believe the MOS requires that you use numerals for all numbers over 10, so that needs looking into and fixing.
• You said you wanted to know what to work on before taking to FAC, so I looked at the article with that in mind. I reviewed the article as I would at FAC.

Hope this helps. Please note that I don't watchlist Peer Reviews I've done. If you have a question about something, you'll have to drop a note on my talk page to get my attention. (My watchlist is already WAY too long, adding peer reviews would make things much worse.) 14:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Comments from Acdixon (talk · contribs)

Lede:

• Minor issue: Is being a guerilla a "service"? Just seems like an odd word choice to me, although I can't immediately think of something better.
  • Changed.
• "then later" -> "and later" or "then"
  • Fixed.
• Link "Texas"
  • Done.
• What is a "routine raid"? Maybe drop "routine".
  • Done.

Early life:

• Who said he was a well-behaved child?
  • Noted.
• Any idea what motivated the move from Kentucky to Missouri?
• You do talk briefly about the motivation to move from Missouri to Kansas, but for me, it occurs too late. I'm wondering why the family is doing all this moving for several sentences.
• The second paragraph is very disjointed. The second and third sentences relate to each other, but the other two don't seem connected to each other or much of anything else nearby.
• Is there no more information about the wagon trip to New Mexico? The wording raises doubt about whether Anderson actually lost the shipment or just said he lost it, but provides no alternative explanations. Do we know what was being transported or how it was allegedly lost?

Horse trading:

• It strikes me that this section really isn't about horse trading, at least in the legal sense. It's more about Anderson's introduction to criminal activity. The section title should probably reflect this.
  • Good point, done.
• "Anderson had stated to a neighbor that sought to fight for financial reasons" This seems to be missing a "he" before sought.
  • Looks like somebody got to it before I did.
• The fact that the Kansas Sixth Cavalry arrests Anderson and his colleagues kind of caught me off guard. Was the group notorious at this point? Were they actively on the lam? If so, why would they draw attention to themselves by joining the Confederate Army?
• After the death of the elder Anderson, it is probably unnecessary to continue differentiating between him and his son by using the middle initial.
  • Good catch, fixed.

Quantrill's raiders:

• I admit I got confused here. I see Anderson joining Quantrill's Raiders, but in the previous section, Quantrill scolded Anderson for attacking Confederates, which according to the scholars cited, fostered resentment toward Quantrill. So why is he now joining the man he resents so badly? Are these events out of their natural chronological order?
• "In May 1863, Anderson joined members of Quantrill's Raiders on a raid near Council Grove, in which they robbed a store 15 miles (24 km) west of Council Grove." Can this sentence be re-worded to avoid mentioning Council Grove twice?
  • Changed
• I find the last paragraph of this section particularly strong. Nice job.
  • Thanks :)

Lawrence Massacre:

• "Quantrill attained near-unanimous consent to strike Lawrence (40 miles (64 km) into Union territory)," Because the convert template puts parentheses around the metric measure, is there a way to reword this sentence to avoid the outer parentheses?
  • Rephrased.
• "On the trip" Consider "En route".
  • Added.
• What is the significance of the taking of the Union flag and the captain's uniform? Did the guerillas impersonate Union soldiers during the raid, or were these just trophies?
• "killing almost every man who appeared on the streets" Is the gender-specific language meant to imply that women generally were not killed by the raiders?
  • Yes, harming women was unacceptable to them (hence the outrage later when Anderson shoots a woman).
• If you know what tribe the Indian belonged to, it would be better to use this. If not, it is understandable.
  • Found it, noted.

Texas:

• Check the image caption. I think the word "painting" appears once too often.
  • Fixed.
• Anderson's wife (if, indeed, they were married) is not mentioned again outside this section. Did she stay at home (wherever that might have been) during his raids, or did she accompany him? Was she hunted down by Union forces? Did she survive the war? Do we know anything more about her than what we have here?

Growing infamy:

• "fillip". Kudos. It's rare for me to run across a word I've never even heard of before.
  • Thanks, I learned that word a few months ago, can't recall where, and I've been trying to sneak it into articles ever since.

Missouri River and Fayette:

• "Anderson met Todd and Quantrill on September 24, 1864" Was this a planned or chance encounter?

Raid on Centralia:

• "They found a large supply of whiskey and all began drinking, including Anderson, who retreated into the lobby of the town hotel to rest" This probably needs to be two sentences.
  • Split.

Aftermath of Centralia:

• "Wood notes that the St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat reported that Anderson raped the man's twelve- or thirteen-year-old black servant." With the footnote, you can probably omit "Wood notes that" for simplicity.
  • Omitted.

General comments:

The fact that this was so well-written means it didn't take nearly as long to review as I anticipated. Note that many of my questions, especially about the early sections, may not have available answers in the reliable sources. I just thought I'd throw them out there as an example of some of the things I wondered about when reading the article. In my opinion, the article isn't far from FA standards. I made a few minor copyedits and links, any of which you are free to revert. A very interesting read. Acdixon ^{(talk · contribs)} 17:50, 13 April 2012 (UTC)