Talk:Odell Waller/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Delldot (talk · contribs) 23:52, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello again Khazar2, I was pleased to see your new submissions to GAN because it was such a pleasure working with you when I reviewed Eleanor Roosevelt. I will get this review started and add comments gradually.

Thanks--it was a pleasure working with you, too, and I appreciate the edits you've already made to this article.

• I think this needs to be fleshed out a little more: "Eager to help Waller, the WDL reluctantly agreed to the terms." Were they reluctant because they thought the RWL was just using Waller as a propaganda piece, whereas the WDL really wanted to help him? Why did the RWL get to set the terms, whouldn't it be up to Waller who represented him?

• I wondered, too, how the RWL got such a chokehold on the case, when Waller doesn't seem like someone who would have any interest in their ideology. I'll skim that chapter again tomorrow or the day after and see if there's an explanation I missed that can be added. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:09, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

• Okay, I think the issue is that both groups saw the public campaign and the defense as going hand-in-hand. WDL didn't want to wade in unless they could avoid being associated with the communist RWL. Clarified this a bit. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:36, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

• If it was the WDL's reluctance that kept them out of the case, how were they "rebuffed by the RWL"? delldot ∇. 02:29, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

• My understanding is the WDL wanted to not just participate in the case, but actually take control of the case; the RWL wasn't willing to back off at first.

More to come. delldot ∇. 23:52, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

• Isn't the article awfully skimpy on sources? (edit: I mean, basing the entire article on 4 books, not that there are unsourced facts in the article.) Reliance on too few sources could lead the piece to be biased (e.g. I'm wondering if one of the authors had a sympathy for the WDL and antipathy for the RWL).
  • How about this article? It's from E&C/EducationandCulture25(1)(2009):17–35. (I thought it was interesting that this article mentions that Davis was himself a sharecropper for a larger landowner, who cut Davis' share, causing Davis to cut Waller's). (The spam filter is not letting me add a link to the full text but you can find it through a Google search).
    • That article is actually one of the four sources. =) But I'll add the sharecropper of a sharecropper bit at some point tomorrow. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:14, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
      • Facepalm! How'd I miss that? delldot ∇. 01:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
        • No worries, I had gotten it from a different link. I should be able to get to the rest of this tomorrow or Tues. Thanks for the helpful feedback. -- Khazar2 (talk) 14:59, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
          • Added Davis' sharecropping.
• Certainly if there are more sources with more to say about the subject, the article could stand to be expanded. I would think that leaving it this short would only be justified if there's really nothing more written about him in other sources.

• I don't think there's much, at least in terms of secondary sources. I did a search through Highbeam and only found passing mentions, and Google Books didn't turn up any books for me that had more information than what's already here, just one- to two-paragraph summaries. Google Scholar is pretty barren, too.[1] There's more information in the Sherman book than I've presented here, of course, but I'm concerned that the article already over-relies on Sherman and that to go further into detail in his research, without other supplemental sources, may start to raise copyright issues.

• Well, I don't think there would raise copyright issues (unless there was close paraphrasing or similar structure, etc.) but I do think it would be a bad idea to rely so heavily on that one source so I agree you shouldn't. delldot ∇. 02:29, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

• I think this may be confusing to readers who aren't keeping track of who Sherman is: "Sherman states that she became involved after receiving a letter from Murray..." You could just say "one historian" and "another" or something maybe.

• added context

• Is there a reason for the space before this comma in the quote? "tried to work and have something , and couldn't so that maid them steel and rob."

• Fixed.

• Is there a better word than "Legacy" for the last section? It just sounds a little weird to me. I also wonder if there is any way to expand this section.

• Changed to "Aftermath of case"--does that sound better?

• I feel like that has a negative connotation. I changed to "Impact of the case", what do you think? delldot ∇. 02:29, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

• Sounds good.

More coming. delldot ∇. 00:19, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

• We have another case of two people with the same last name. Calling them both "Davis" makes this extremely confusing: "Henry Davis, a teenage black employee of Oscar Davis, maintained that Odell Waller had fired at Davis without provocation or warning, hitting him four times. Oscar Davis's sons testified that Davis stated Waller had shot him without cause. One son added that Davis said Waller had continued to shoot after Davis had already fallen to the ground.". Given the trouble with just first names and their Jim Crow implications, we might have to do something clever with the wording here, e.g. "the witness", "the landlord", "the latter". Or keep using full names.

Think I've clarified this now.

• This book says that Waller left school "at 16" to help "them" (his foster parents) in the fields. Then it goes on to talk about Willis' death in 1938. In 1938 Waller would have been 21, are you sure he would still have been in high school?

Good catch. Looking at the footnote, Stack is incorrectly summarizing sherman here. Replaced with correct chronology.

• I've been poking around Google Books etc. to see how much more detail exists, and it looks like there is some more that could be added to the article. e.g. that last book has more on the leadup to the conflict, and more detail about a Save Odell Waller rally. I will keep looking for sources to see if there are any I could recommend. delldot ∇. 00:45, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

• Unfortunately Google Books is only letting me see small snippets of that one, not full pages, and my library system doesn't have it. But remember that Pauli Murray (the author of that book) was one of the main advocates for Waller; her autobiography probably counts as more of a primary source than a secondary one in this case. If I can trick Google into giving me a better view, though, I'll see if I can see any good quotations to grab. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:14, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

• Me too, I just saw that in one of the snippets. Yeah, I haven't had super much luck finding more sources since I started looking a bit ago. delldot ∇. 01:43, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I think I've addressed the above concerns for now, except perhaps the length issue. Let me know what you think, I'm glad to do more. Thanks for the comments and close read. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:24, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Next round

Yeah, I didn't have any luck finding substantial additional sources either. Most of the passing mentions I had originally seen turned out to just be citations. Well, this is one of the situations GA was created for, articles that could not be expanded to the depth expected of a FA. A few more comments:

• "The group compared the trial to that of the Scottsboro Boys, nine African-American young men accused of rape in Alabama under suspicious circumstances, and began to criticize the racism and economic conditions of his rural Virginia county." - the 'his' is confusing here, maybe "the rural Virginia county where Waller had lived" or "the rural Virginia county where the trial took place".

Changed to "Waller's".

• I think it's relevant that the case got so much press at the time. I wonder if it would make sense to include a fair use image of a newspaper at the time to illustrate how the case was covered. I saw a WDL paper about the funeral with an image that might make for an interesting shot.

I think it's a great idea. Do you have a link? I'll dig around in a minute.

This is the one I was looking at. delldot ∇. 06:06, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

• What is a blackout? "including a two-hour blackout of the primarily African-American neighborhood of Harlem in New York City."

They turned off all the lights. Clarified.

• It might be interesting if possible to expand on this sentence: "Only one white person, Morris Milgram of the WDL, attended; other whites had been asked not to come." Why had they asked other whites not to come? Who asked? Why did they make an exception for Milgram?

Added a bit more.

All your responses to my above comments are great. delldot ∇. 02:29, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

I was looking for good old newspapers to use for an image and found this one, which says "a mob sought Waller to lynch him", so he escaped to Ohio. Isn't that an interesting and important fact? I guess the article from the 40's is not an acceptable source even for verification? That fact isn't in any of the other sources?

The decade probably isn't a problem, but I think the Crisis is the NAACP's newsletter for members. Sherman does report a posse gathered to bring Waller in, but doesn't call them a lynch mob, if I recall; this might be a bit of hyperbole from the NAACP. But I'll double-check. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:04, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Double-checking this, Sherman does mention later that Waller was afraid he would be lynched, and so skipped town immediately after the killing, but I think the NAACP may be creating false cause and effect here; it sounds like the sheriff just formed a standard posse and that Waller had already left town. (Of course, lynching was always a possibility with those posses, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that that was the intention of this one.) I did add that Waller was afraid he would be lynched, though. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

There are a couple sentences in this, you think we could use that in the Aftermath section? delldot ∇. 06:06, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm, maybe as a block quote summary in the "Campaign section"? Let me try this and you can see what you think. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:04, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Added. Thanks for the find. -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Very cool. But I think it's weird in Trial, don't you think it'd be better in Campaign? Were you concerned about it knocking into the images? I think it would work well left aligned in the paragraph with the quote about how he's "a personification of all those to whom democracy is denied". It would work on my screen, and on a much larger screen it might be fine anyway since the images wouldn't look to be squeezing the text. Another option is just to work the quote into the article text. delldot ∇. 23:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Good point--done. -- Khazar2 (talk) 00:09, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Perfect. There were a couple things you said you wanted to look into. Take your time, let me know when you want me to have another look. delldot ∇. 00:43, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I think the only outstanding request left was a newspaper image of Waller--added. Am I missing anything else? Just let me know. Cheers, Khazar2 (talk) 03:08, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm psyched that you added the newspaper, I think it adds a great touch. But you can hardly see anything in the newspaper page with the images and text so small. One idea might be to crop out the bottom half of the page, which is mostly just text too tiny to see in the image anyway, and enlarge the top half in the article. Maybe readers could see the headlines and photos that way.

Anyway, the article looks great, I've reread the whole thing and can't see any problem with it. It's as comprehensive as it can be given the coverage (I've searched and am convinced more sources can't be found), well sourced, well written, illustrated, neutral, and stable. I can't see any reason not to pass it now. Great work! delldot ∇. 05:25, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Great, thanks! -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:35, 24 January 2013 (UTC)