Talk:Bethmann family/Archives/2014

Things to do

1.  Doing... Expand Simon Moritz von Bethmann, then break out into sub-article.
2. Translate de:Johann Philipp Freiherr von Bethmann, then break out into sub-article.
3.  Doing... Write sub-article Bethmann bank.
4.  Done Write sub-article Bethmanns and Rothschilds.
5.  DoneTranslate/write stubs on "minor" Bethmanns. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Goodmorningworld (talk • contribs) 00:47, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Why are almost all the sources in German?

It's the nature of the beast. There is a dearth of English-language works about the Bethmanns. The picture changes somewhat for the Bethmann bank, which will be the topic of an own article. The Bethmann bank is mentioned by scholars such as Paul Johnson, Fritz Stern and Niall Ferguson. Unfortunately even they do so only within a larger context, i.e., the Rothschilds (Johnson and Ferguson) or 19th-century German industry (Stern).

The English-language book with the most information on the Bethmann bank is the 1927 monograph on the Rothschilds by Egon Caesar Conte Corti originally published in German, with 27 references to the Bethmann name. Fortunately, the quality of the English translation is excellent.

Local history, that is of Frankfurt am Main, understandably is of little interest to international authors. However, numerous German-language works focusing on Frankfurt history cover the Bethmanns and their activities at home and abroad in copious detail. (And of course, there is the amazing Institut für Stadtgeschichte (Frankfurt), which has been putting its archives on the Internet.)

By coincidence, the Bethmanns also are of passing interest to those writing about the life of Richard Wagner, because his second wife Cosima was a grand-daughter of a Bethmann. Unfortunately, several of the English-language works on this aspect cannot be cited except as examples of error, because they fall for a rumor originally disseminated in 1887, alleging Jewish descent of the Bethmanns. It has taken until the publication of The Wagner Clan by Jonathan Carr in 2007 to finally put this rumor to rest.

I don't speak German / don't live in Germany, why should I trust this article?

Even in many Wikipedia entries citing only English-language sources, the actual books or articles may not be available. They may be out of print, the local library may not stock them. Hence the situation for an article citing, of necessity, non-English-language sources is not as radically different as may appear at first glance.

I have done my best to maximize verifiability by inserting in-line cites after each and every statement of fact in the article, thus giving a quick linkage from a statement to the relevant book or article or website.

Some of the German-language books are sold abroad new or used. A reference copy may be available in national repositories such as the U.S. Library of Congress or a book may be in a university library. More and more books are becoming available in searchable form online, on Google Books and Amazon.

The best fact check is other Wikipedians. There are thousands of Wikipedians with college-level or better German language competency who can be called on to check the accuracy of translations, and thousands of Wikipedians living in Germany with easy access to public libraries containing referenced books. In case of doubt, they will be the arbiters of whether or not the citations in the article are accurate.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 15:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Suggestions

Hi there, I think you want a first review for this article (not really a new assement). Although my English is not good enough to check for grammar mistakes, I've got a few points:

• Citations should be after the punctation (,[1] ) if appropriate.
• wikilinks mentioned in the text don't get a hatnote, like {{seealso|…}} and its better to link in the text than to make a hatnote.

Further information: Simon Moritz Bethmann (1687-1725), Johann Philipp Bethmann (1715–1793), Johann Jakob Bethmann, and Simon Moritz Bethmann (1721–1782)

Konrad (sometimes spelled "Conrad") Bethmann (1652–1701) was born in Goslar as the seventh child of the merchant …

or

Konrad Bethmann (sometimes spelled "Conrad") (1652–1701) was born in Goslar as the seventh child of the merchant …

• is there a section controversies planned? Talk:The Jew of Linz#False claims about the Jewish descent of the Bethmann family

Automated peer review

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

• Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Wikipedia:Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.^[?]
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• Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
  • “In the year [of] 1416”
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I hope this will help a bit. Thanks Sebastian scha. (talk) 19:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

p.s. and for too much references, the article New York City has 171 inline refs. Sebastian scha. (talk) 20:03, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, that was very helpful indeed. I am not planning a section on the "Jewish Bethmann" canard. I already mention it here on the Talk page, per WP:UNDUE I need not dignify it further.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 23:27, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and the reason that some footnotes are still in the middle of a sentence is that the source supports the sentence only up to that word, but not the entire sentence. Hope that's allright by Wikipedia.--Goodmorningworld (talk) 01:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I think, that's absolute correct if the source only support a word or phrase. I don't know, if UNDUE is okay here, nevertheless it's your project at the moment and if you decide so, it's okay with me. And this is a very good article. If you are looking for a good article or even a featured article be sure to go through a peer review. IMHO this article has the capability. Sebastian scha. (talk) 02:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)