Talk:Prince John of the United Kingdom/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: EEng (talk · contribs) 18:18, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Scorecard so far Passed as GA

Final evaluation: Passed as GA. (I still have to do other formalities elsewhere -- give me an hour or two.) EEng (talk) 17:02, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Well-written:

the prose is clear and concise, respects copyright laws, and the spelling and grammar are correct; and

it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.

Verifiable with no original research:

it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline;

it provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines; and

it contains no original research.

Broad in its coverage:

it addresses the main aspects of the topic; and

it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without bias, giving due weight to each.

Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.

Illustrated, if possible, by images:

images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content; and

images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.

Reviewer eligibility

I did some light copyediting of this article about two years ago -- mostly removed some pop culture trivia -- anyway the article's been almost completely rewritten and expanded recently. I believe this doesn't disqualify me from doing the review. If I hear no objections in a day or two I'll get started. EEng (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Image copyrights?

Let me say first that I have every expectation the article will pass easily, so I'm starting with what I suspect will be the few problem areas. I'm unconvinced of the PD status of the following two inages. Alex, can you set me straight in my thinking, or get advice at an appropriate noticeboard?

• File:Prince_George_with_Prince_John.jpg: From information at the source url linked from the Commons description, I don't see any evidence of publication prior to purchase by the NPG in 1986. EEng (talk) 22:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng: Thanks for your feedback. Beside the fact that it says "bromide print", the image is from a series used to create postcards. ([1] [2])

Ah yes. I think we're justified in assuming it was published as a postcard. EEng (talk)

• File:Prince_John,_1918.jpg Whether or not the base image was previously published, the signed image is certainly a unique work and there's no evidence it was published before being put on sale on the website linked from the Commons description.

The base of the image is the signed version, as you can see in the documentary on Prince John. I'm not sure if it was published or not, if it wasn't, what can I do? Perhaps I could crop the signature and leave the rest of the photo, would that be alright? Alex (talk) 08:17, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

By "base" I mean the unsigned image. If we can establish that the base image was used for postcards etc. (or otherwise published) then cropping out the signature would fix the problem (though of course taking away a lot of the interest of this particular image). EEng (talk)

@EEng: I don't think there is a way of determining whether it was or was not published. Alex (talk) 15:11, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

In other words, we have no evidence it was a postcard or whatever? I think that's right -- the quality is below what I'd expect for a postcard image, plus (as we well know) by now John was being "advertised" by the family, you might say. I think this is a private snap, never published until now.

Do we know who the photographer is and when he died? That would help too, if he died at least 70 years ago (or something -- I have to check). But I assume we don't. I don't see a fair-use argument. I think we have to conclude it will need to be deleted. Tell you what -- I'll post a query at copyright noticeboard to see if anyone can see a way out. If you know anything about photographer say so. EEng (talk) 15:29, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng: Post the query, I really don't see any other way out for this photo. Alex (talk) 15:42, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

discussion EEng (talk)

Nothing's happening there. I think we're out of luck. I don't see any choice but for you to mark the image for deletion at Commons. Sorry. EEng (talk) 13:12, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

There was a little more discussion (see link above) and I think based on that the image really should be deleted -- easiest way is to remove the license tags and add {{speedydelete|per uploader request}}. Sorry. EEng (talk) 07:06, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Wikisource changes for copyediting

There will probably be lots of little changes to the article during this process, and there's something I like to do to prepared for that, which is to add a linebreak between each sentence. This doesn't change the rendered page as the reader sees it, but it makes diffs much, much smaller and easier to understand. I'm bringing this up here because it drives some people crazy at first, but you get used to it. I'll demonstrate in the article -- feel free to object and revert if it really bugs you. EEng (talk) 15:29, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Source reliability

Except as noted (and so far none are noted) I don't see these as a bar to GA if tagged as suggested. Intersperse your thoughts.

1. Jamieson relates that Robert III of Scotland had been born John but took Robert on ascending in 1390. It's a push to use this to support the idea that John was considered unlucky by royals 500 years later. I propose dropping the source and tagging .

2. Unless Demoskoff is some renowned expert I don't think we can use her website as a RS. Propose tagging or .

3. I'm concerned about using Daily Mail for an historical topic, and most especially for history involving the royal family -- esp. given the condemnatory tone of the piece. One doesn't expect film/TV reviews to meet the highest fact-standards in any event. Presumably the author found these points elsewhere so I'll just tag . EEng (talk) 16:26, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng:

1. I've added the Oxford DNB as a reference instead ("He was given the names John Charles Francis, despite a centuries-old royal prejudice against the name John.") Let me know if this is alright.

2. Demoskoff is widely used on Wikipedia (see for example Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale). She does cite sources, so I believe her to be reliable.

3. I've removed the Daily Mail ref and I've replaced it with the documentary, although I feel too many points are referenced to the documentary and that's why I had added the newspaper. Alex (talk) 17:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

1. DNB, obviously. If you've seen any of the articles I've worked on a lot e.g. John Harvard (statue) you'll not be surprised at this suggestion: with the modern aversion to John not solidly cited to DNB, a quote from Jamieson can now be used in a fun note suggesting that the aversion to John extended as far away as Scotland, over 500 years earlier.

2. Demoskoff does seem to take pride in her work, and for the moment there's nothing wrong with citing her -- if we have to, forever. However, as you say she cites her sources so maybe someday someone can track these facts to more conventional sources and cite those instead. So I'll tag .

3. I'd take a serious BBC doc over the Mail any day. Perhaps we should tag the doc (TV/video is just so much harder to vet for reliability) but let's wait on that. EEng (talk) 21:24, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng:

2.Well, I could tag her source, which is, fyi, The Times, but there is no page cited. Would that be alright?

3.I don't see any difference between a documentary and a book, except that one is written and one is spoken. The documentary features comments from historians and experts in the history of the British royal family, so I don't see a problem. Alex (talk) 08:19, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

2. If someone looks it up in The Times and sees the material there, then the cite can be changed to The Times. In the meantime we can only cite where we saw it; the acts a reminder. One good approach is to cite "Demoskoff (www.blah.com), citing The Times, 18 January 1901".

3. Every kind of source has its reliability strengths and weaknesses, but I think we're agreed for now that the BBC doc is good enough for our purposes here. (I only suggested added because you seemed to have some slight reservation about it.)

Let me say it sure is a pleasure working with someone who doesn't take umbrage at everything. My copyedits haven't upset you? Not even a teensy bit? EEng (talk) 12:27, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng:

2. I've added a better source, see here for the actual article.

I've also clarified the tags which you've added, except these two: "Winifred Thomas, a young girl from Halifax who had been sent to live with her aunt and uncle at Sandringham" & "nonetheless, cynics said that the family feared their reputation would be damaged by such an incident." I don't see why these need clarification, what is not clear?

I have no problem whatsoever with your copyedits. Alex (talk) 19:10, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Open the wikisource and look at the tag -- there are "reason=" parameters with explanation. These are not a problem for GA so not urgent. EEng (talk) 19:34, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng: Hopefully these are solved now. Alex (talk) 19:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Yup, but I've added some new issues in the death section. EEng (talk)

@EEng: I've solved the issues, hopefully. I've also changed the image. As for the scorecard, why are the reliability of the sources and neutrality of the article still being reviewed? Alex (talk) 17:55, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
@EEng: I'd really appreciate it if you stopped editing the page over and over again, virtually changing the content completely and adding citation needed templates to text you've written. If there are issues, please bring them up here. Thanks, Alex (talk) 21:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

[Apparently something went wrong as I was saving the following, and I didn't notice until now, so here it is again]

The problem is that statements like "in reality", which imply that sources conflict but we are choosing one as "correct", have to be carefully sourced -- it has to be a situation in which a clearly authoritative source has refuted less careful sources and clearly trumps them. I do think that's the case here, but those sources need to be spelled out explicitly. In one case, I simply named the source (BBC doc) in the text, and in the other I added , which I'm sure you can fill in. (This is the statement that John's treatment was typical for the time -- I'm guessing the source is Whitney but I can't be sure.)

Other than that (which really needs to be done to meet the "words to watch" and "statements of opinion" GA requirements) I think if you look at my last edit you'll see it really doesn't change what's being said, rather that I rearranged the order for what I thought would be better flow. Please take a look again.

IMDB has to be used with caution but for major awards I think it's OK, at least for GA purposes.

EEng (talk) 22:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng: Thanks for clearing this out. I'd prefer to leave the sentence about his treatment as it is (and it indeed is Whitney I've cited it to). I've also changed the order to as it was before, because of the logical chronological order and I've added the last paragraph from the death section to the legacy section because I think it's referring to that, let me know if this is alright. Any other issues? Alex (talk) 08:58, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

We can talk about most of this after GA is done (and we're almost done -- I don't think I've said right out that I was thrilled to see your new version of the article -- great improvement over what was there before).

My remaining concern for GA is still the two statements, (1) "Much of the existing information ... is based on hearsay and rumor" and (2) "In reality ... treatment was usual for the time." Don't misunderstand me -- I have no doubt that (1) is true, and would be surprised if (2) isn't also true too. But both these statements are essentially taking sides with certain sources over other sources, and even that's OK if the sources we "endorse" are clearly authoritative compared to the others. So let's take these two statements one at a time:

• (1) I think it's fine to quote this statement, but we need to tell the reader in text where it comes from -- saying "According to a 200x BBC documentary,..." is fine.

@EEng: Done.

• (2) This one's a harder, because it deals with social norms among Edwardian aristocracy in a very private matter, and to consider a statement like "this was usual practice" reliable the source needs to cite solid scholarly research. I can't see all of Whitney but I don't think she cites a source or other basis for this statement, and frankly the whole book is a bit lightweight. We'll need something along the lines of [3] (though unfortunately I don't this it has what we need here specifically). If this was some minor point we could just omit it for now, but this is really central -- in fact it belongs in the lead. But first we need to find a solid source, or some other way to make the point. Don't worry -- we'll solve this. Does Tizley say something along these lines? EEng (talk) 23:53, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Tizley does say something about this, so maybe I could cite the documentary. Alex (talk) 17:39, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

A direct quote, even if it has to be pieced together with "...", would be great. Hope you don't think I'm being too much of a stickler about this -- it happens that my favorite subject Phineas Gage happens to be one in which, in the last 20 years, a single researcher's work has completely invalidated everything that had been written before, and how to establish that in the article appropriately (instead of a false "writer X says this, but writer Y says that" cop-out) took a lot of time and effort. EEng (talk) 20:24, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng: Sorry for replying, but I'm having a busy week. I'll add the quote during the weekend. Cheers, Alex (talk) 09:32, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

"Sorry for replying" .. um, I guess you ARE having a busy week. I found a perfectly good cite (see article -- you may want to adjust the ref format -- Harvard cites and all). Congratulations! You're the proud parent of a new GA! EEng (talk) 17:02, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

@EEng: Oh my, I meant sorry for replying so late. Thanks for your support! Cheers, Alex (talk) 17:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)