Talk:Indian Creek massacre/GA1

GA Reassessment

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Does not meet good article criteria "factually accurate". As mentioned at Talk:Mike Girty and Talk:Execution of Lucy and James Sample, problems have arisen from using old or non-scholarly sources that do not qualify as reliable sources. Much cleanup needed here and elsewhere. —Kevin Myers 04:37, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you point to specific poorly sourced facts.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:09, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since writing the above, I've removed some of the unreliable stuff, such as references to Mike Girty (though we might re-add a bit about the legend as we discover more reliable sources). Some doubtful stuff still remains, such as the dialogue about "our warriors will number like the trees in the forests", which doesn't appear in reliable sources, and appears to be a polished version of a doubtful 19th century account. Since most of the article is still cited to sources written by amateur historians and/or journalists that don't meet WP:RS, a better question would be, "Can you point to specific properly sourced facts?" There aren't many right now. The good news is that there is a decent selection of reliable sources to consult for this article, we just haven't gotten around to doing it yet. I'll do more fixes as time allows, but until then, this isn't a "good article". —Kevin Myers 23:35, 24 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can find no reliable source for the claim that cries of "Remember Indian Creek!" were heard from the Warrior before the Bad Axe massacre. It may be true, but the only mention of the phrase I can find on Google books is from a modern novel. The only source we have here is an unreferenced, amateur history article from DeKalb County Online (no longer live) that does not qualify as a reliable source. —Kevin Myers 14:27, 1 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly, this article is used as a source, but modern newspaper articles should usually not be used as historical sources, since they're not written by historians. A newspaper is a reliable source for reporting the news, not writing history. From this news article, we've used the description of Jesse B. Brown as a "former brigadier general" of the Illinois militia. I can't find a source to confirm this. From what I can tell, Brown was not yet a former militia general in 1832, though he would become an Iowa militia general years later. —Kevin Myers 19:02, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]