Talk:John Savage (soldier)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Djmaschek (talk · contribs) 19:21, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Initial Review

I will review this article. There is a lot of interesting and worthwhile information in this article, so it deserves a thorough review. However, at first glance I can see a number of technical problems. These are listed below. Later, I will provide a more specific list of issues in more detail. As always, if you object to my review, you can argue your case or request a different reviewer. Djmaschek (talk) 19:21, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just so you understand this review, when I write "narrative", I mean everything written below the introduction (that is, everything below the heading Ancestral background).
The introduction repeats sentences word-for-word that appear in the narrative. The introduction is supposed to be a summary of the narrative. People reading this article don't need to read the same sentence twice.
The introduction is too long. For example, it goes into great detail about the sanctuary incident. The introduction could mention the sanctuary incident in 1 or 2 sentences and leave the details for the narrative.
There are some sentences that are missing nouns and there are hanging clauses. Details will be provided later.
There are many back-to-back identical citations. There are citations after every sentence (and sometimes after every clause) even when the same source is cited. You are making a lot of extra work for yourself. An example is shown below. Please note that citations 112, 113, 114, and 115 are from the same source (Richardson pp.557-558). You only need to cite this passage one time, at the end. EXCEPTION: If there is a new paragraph, then it needs to be cited again even if it still uses the same source.
- "Savage married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Ralph Vernon of Haddon.[112] They had one legitimate son, Sir John Savage (1470–1527), ancestor of John Savage, 2nd Earl Rivers,[113] and the subsequent Earls Rivers,[114] and four legitimate daughters said to be; Alice Savage, Felicia Savage, Ellen Savage and Maud Savage."[115]

Review 1

Here is the first part of my detailed review. Djmaschek (talk) 23:46, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I know you spent a lot of time on this article. Please do not be discouraged. There should be a lot fewer edits next for your next article.
Back-to-back identical citations. See my comment under Initial review.
Introduction. Generally speaking, the introduction does not need citations. That's because the narrative (which must be cited) should cover all the information summarized in the introduction. Some unusual situations may call for 1-2 citations, but there are 21 citations in the introduction.
Introduction. There are 7 sentences explaining the right of sanctuary incident. While the right of sanctuary incident is an important part of Savage's biography, this could be covered in 1-3 sentences. Please leave the details for the narrative.
Introduction. "where the Duke made him a Knight banneret (a knight who commanded soldiers under their own banner)." There is no need for you to define knight banneret when there is a link, especially in the introduction. If you believe it's important enough for the reader to know without having to open the link, then save the definition for the narrative.
Introduction. Only one hyperlink is necessary for each article cross-linked (always the first one). For example, the introduction has 5 links to Henry VII of England, 2 for Edward IV of England, 2 for Edward V of England. (It is excusable to link twice for Henry - once as Henry Tudor and once as Henry VII to avoid confusing the reader.) Generally, an article should be linked 1 time per article, although I would be OK with as many as three: 1 for introduction, 1 for narrative, and 1 for infobox.
Introduction. These sentences or clauses are word-for-word identical with sentences in the narrative. The introduction is a summary. I will not approve for GA class if there are identical sentences in the introduction and narrative.
- following the death of Edward, the Duke of Gloucester became the de facto ruler of England, dominating the short rule of his nephew Edward V, and then later de jure ruler after taking the throne as Richard III
- The year following his victory at Bosworth, Henry VII sent Savage to arrest Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother Thomas Stafford,[6] who were key actors in the Stafford and Lovell rebellion, the first armed uprising against Henry's young reign.
- Culham where the two were seeking sanctuary in a church belonging to Abingdon Abbey (having previously claimed sanctuary elsewhere before continuing their campaigns against the king[9]) and had them forcibly removed.
- BTW: In the above sentence in the narrative, this clause is missing: "Savage led a force of 60 armed men to".
- Savage was later one of the main cavalry commanders at what is considered to have been the final battle of the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Stoke Field on 16 June 1487, a conflict stemming from an attempt by leading Yorkists to unseat King Henry in favour of the pretender Lambert Simnel.
- The battle was a decisive victory with almost all the leading Yorkists killed, and never again would a battle be fought along Yorkist and Lancastrian lines.

Review 2

Here is my review of the narrative part of the article. If you disagree with some of my suggested edits, please argue your case. Thanks. Djmaschek (talk) 22:00, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ancestral background. Paragraph 1, Sentence 1: "he died three years..." This should start a new sentence or be separated from the rest of the sentence by a semi-colon.
Early career. The infobox gives his birth year a "c. 1444". This information needs to be mentioned in a sentence and cited.
Early career. This is a gigantic sentence. "Made a Knight of the Bath by Edward IV on the occasion of his Queen's coronation on 26 May 1465,[30] the now Sir John Savage fought with King Edward and the Yorkists at the Battle of Barnet in 1471 and the Battle of Tewkesbury later that same year, as well as joining the King's brother the Duke of Gloucester's invasion of Scotland in 1482 (where he was made a Knight banneret[31]), aiding them to victories in all of these engagements." The Knight of the Bath has nothing to do with Barnet and Tewkesbury in 1471 and should be a separate sentence. Suggestion: "He was made a Knight of the Bath by Edward IV on the occasion of his Queen's coronation on 26 May 1465.[30] Sir John Savage fought with King Edward and the Yorkists at the Battle of Barnet in 1471 and the Battle of Tewkesbury later that same year, as well as joining the King's brother the Duke of Gloucester's invasion of Scotland in 1482, aiding them to victories in all of these engagements. He was made a Knight banneret for his efforts in the Scotland. (you could define knight banneret here)"
Early career. "the younger Sir John was later Mayor of Chester himself in 1484 and 1485" Is the younger Sir John the same as subject of this article? It's not clear. Maybe you could write that his father was mayor without naming him Sir John, which makes this sentence confusing.
Early career. Hanging clause: "Whilst 8 of his 9 brothers were made later freemen of the city in a single ceremony early in 1485." Suggestion: Remove "Whilst" and start sentence with "Eight" or "Early in 1485". Change "made later" > "later made".
Early career. Gigantic sentence. "Although the family managed to retain their liberties, amongst rising suspicions Savage began to plot against the King, and according to Polydore Vergil, Savage was one of the prominent men who "invited" Henry Tudor (a claimant to the throne through his descent from the Lancastrian branch of the House of Plantagenet) to invade, Savage may have also been acting as a front man for his uncle Lord Stanley.[38]" Without changing any words, this could (IMO) be made into 3 sentences by putting periods after "King" and "invade". It's not clear why "invited" needs quotes. If he was in on the plot, there is no need for quotes (or use the word: urged).
Support for Henry Tudor. Unlink duplicate links: Knight banneret, Henry VII (several), the Stanleys, Lord Strange, Dr Thomas Savage, Francis Lord Lovell, Lambert Simnel, Sir Humphrey Stafford.
Support for Henry Tudor. Ambiguous: "fought with him at Bosworth Field." Suggestion: "fought for him at Bosworth Field."
Support for Henry Tudor. Paragraph starting with "Following victory": "counties of; Nottinghamshire" Remove stray semi-colon.
Support for Henry Tudor. "(where Sir John would be killed whilst besieging the city in 1492).[62]" This is not needed, since it is mentioned later.
Support for Henry Tudor. There is an entire paragraph about Thomas Savage. Other than the facts that his brother was appointed Archbishop and was part of the king's inner circle, the details belong in Thomas Savage (bishop). WP:OOS
Support for Henry Tudor. "Culham" This sentence is missing the clause: "Savage led a force of 60 armed men to".
Support for Henry Tudor. Typo: "Abbeys' walls" > "Abbey's walls".
Support for Henry Tudor. Hanging clause: "As well as a letter from King Henry..." Rewrite as a full sentence.
Support for Henry Tudor. "(now UK)" Not needed. Please remove.

Add out of scope tag and other corrections. Djmaschek (talk) 03:07, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Review 3

Here are some more review comments. Djmaschek (talk) 22:48, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the John A. Wagner (2001) citation in the paragraph about the sanctuary incident. It was a "bare url". These are places where the url is exposed to the reader. Apparently, we are supposed to avoid this for GA articles. I will double check on the rules. Please look at how this was done.
Sources normally should show the date that the book was published. Again, I'm not sure if this is a hard-and-fast rule or if this is a convention that is followed by most WPMILHIST writers.

Review 4

Here endeth my review. To sum up, (1) the introduction needs to be rewritten in a way that summarizes the article, rather than repeating details from the narrative, (2) duplicate back-to-back citations need to be removed, and (3) all of my editorial nit-picking needs to be addressed. Djmaschek (talk) 04:10, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Death and legacy. Paragraph 1, sentence 3: "Whilst riding around the walls of the city with another knight and Bosworth veteran Sir John Riseley, ..." This seems like there are 3 knights when there are only 2. Suggestion: "Whilst riding around the walls of the city with Bosworth veteran Sir John Riseley".

The reference to the two knights being 'captured' was taken directly from the primary source and whilst I note that capture does not make later escape impossible, I will change the wording to allay any confusion that may arise from its current form. Grosseteste (talk) 11:48, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Death and legacy. Paragraph 1, sentence 3: "in order to conduct reconnoitring (reconnaissance of the defences in preparation for the military offensive, in this case to assess the strength of the walls and other fortifications)" Reconnaissance does not need a long explanation, especially if you provide a link. Suggest: "in order to conduct a reconnaissance of the walls and fortifications".
Death and legacy. Paragraph 1, sentence 3: "the two knights were intercepted by the enemy and captured." If Savage fought to the death and Riseley escaped, they were not captured. Suggestion: Remove "and captured".
Death and legacy. Paragraph 2: This is mostly out of scope. WP:OOS You do not need to detail Warbeck's activities after Savage's death. Suggestion: You could include this and delete the rest. "Warbeck was eventually captured; he was later executed following an escape attempt. Savage' uncle, William Stanley was executed for allegedly supporting Warbeck."
Death and legacy. Paragraph 2: "2nd landing" > "second landing".
Death and legacy. Paragraph 3: "Sir John Savage predeceased his father (also named Sir John)." Remove. This was already mentioned in Ancestral background.
Death and legacy. Paragraph 3: "...Savage had helped them gain." Suggestion: "...Savage had helped gain."
Family. "said to be; Alice Savage, Felicia Savage, Ellen Savage and Maud Savage" Remove stray semi-colon. Repeating the surname is not necessary. Suggestion: "said to be Alice, Felicia, Ellen and Maud Savage".
Family. Add links to Mary I of England and Elizabeth I of England.
Family. The reference to Bonner is interesting, but the last sentence (Foxe quote) is way out of scope.

Review 5

I consulted some other military history editors. Here are what they said. Djmaschek (talk) 23:59, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Citiations/sources need both (1) publication date and (2) publisher. This is needed in order to properly identify the source. Yours contain only author, title, and page. Please add the other information. I know this is a lot.

On this point, as far as I remember the editor who did the B review told me to not put that information in the citations, but to list it in the bibliography. All references have the publication year, although several do require the publisher name to be provided. I will add this information to the citations as well. Grosseteste (talk) 00:19, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Grosseteste: The way you have now formatted the citations, it is not necessary to list the references, since the citations should contain all the needed information (author, year, title, year, publisher, pages). I believe that the B class reviewer was suggesting that you list all your references separately, that is, with all the above data except the pages. That way, you would have two sections: (1) list of references (author, year, title, year, publisher) and (2) list of citations (author, year, pages). Originally, you only listed the citations without year and publisher, so the B class reviewer was correctly pointing out that a separate list of references was needed. Another way to do this would be to use sfn formatting. Note that I am not going to force you to do this. See Battle of New Hope Church for an example of sfn formatting. Djmaschek (talk) 04:04, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: "However, bare URLs do not pass our B1 criterion for B class." So no bare urls. But I see that the article no longer has any bare urls, so you are OK.
Follow up: Citations 12-13-14, 19-20, and 28-29 are back-to-back identical. (Note that citations 58-59 are OK because they are at a change in paragraph.) I pointed out this issue in Initial review and Review 1, so you need to look for any others please.
I will look at your other edits later.
Please note at the top of the GA review page that it says not to use == level headers.

Review 6

I am going over your edits and see that you fixed most of the issues. Here are more issues that I can see. Djmaschek (talk) 04:04, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The rewards of battle. There is an open parenthesis after the word Gresley that is without a paired closed parenthesis. This makes the sentence appear to have parentheses within parentheses (()), which I suspect was not your intention. Please fix.
The rewards of battle. Missing period (.) after Boulogne.
The rewards of battle. Duplicate citations: Thomas Savage and Archbishop of York. The only links needed are under Ancestral background.
The rewards of battle. Sentence: "Before beginning a career" is missing a noun (Thomas or he).
The rewards of battle. The "8" at the end should probably be "eight", as in the way you handled 11 and 8 in the Perkin Warbeck and the expedition to France section.
Perkin Warbeck and the expedition to France. The first sentence needs a comma after Perkin Warbeck.
Perkin Warbeck and the expedition to France. The first sentence has two parenthetical statements. (1) It is not necessary to remind the reader that men-at-arms are "heavily armored cavalry" when there is a link. (2) The second parenthetical statement includes, "but instead considerably increased the number of archers". The reader can see that the number increased from 140 to 330, so the extra words are not needed. Please remove "but ... archers".
Perkin Warbeck and the expedition to France. The first sentence has back-to-back identical citations 46-47.
Perkin Warbeck and the expedition to France. Does the Cope reference have a page number, publisher, and year? Please include if possible.
I made other corrections and removed some duplicate links. You can look these up in View History.
All Dictionary of National Biography citations. These are missing year and volume. Please add year=2004 and volume=50. (I assume Savage is found under the Russen-Scobell volume.)
FYI. The note at the top of the template:ref page says ref footnotes are not recommended. I am not going to insist that you change this, but if you submit this article for A class, a reviewer may want this fixed.

Here are a few more items. Djmaschek (talk) 04:45, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

~~All page ranges need the long dash (pgs. 452-3 > pgs. 452–3). I'm not going to insist, but next time please do this.~~ You can find the long dash by clicking the "Special characters" link and selecting "Symbols". Use the first dash that you see on the top line going from left to right. The other dashes are even longer and not the ones you want. There are ways to get the correct dash automatically, but I don't know how.
- This is fixed. pg. was changed to p. and pgs. was changed to pp. Djmaschek (talk) 01:04, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Practice. The rewards of battle. The last sentence needs a long dash between June and July.
This article has lots of good information, which is why I volunteered to review it. I have authored 200+ B class articles, but fewer than 10 GA class articles (this may change). By now you should understand why I do not nominate more of my articles for GA review. It's because the standard is quite high.

@Grosseteste: This article is still on hold. Please see Review 6 (above) for the final required edits. Thanks. Djmaschek (talk) 22:31, 13 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Grosseteste: This article is still on hold. Please fix items in Review 6 (above). I promise, that's all. Djmaschek (talk) 01:04, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Djmaschek: Hi, sorry I've been busy recently but I will address these points now. Thank you for all your assistance in this. Grosseteste (talk) 18:32, 23 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Response

Thank you very much Djmaschek, I will get to work on enacting these changes shortly. Grosseteste (talk) 17:42, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up

I believe I have addressed your points Djmaschek, please note anywhere you feel I have failed to adequately resolve issues. Best regards, Grosseteste (talk) 12:34, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up 2

@Djmaschek: Hi Djmaschek, were there any other points you felt needed addressing? Grosseteste (talk) 22:04, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Grosseteste: Oh sorry! I'll check it a little later. Djmaschek (talk) 23:39, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

All done! This will be promoted to GA shortly. Djmaschek (talk) 02:15, 13 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Djmaschek: Thank you very much for all your assistance in getting this article to GA class. Many thanks and best regards, Grosseteste (talk) 17:44, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]