Jump to content

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/July 2023

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Gog the Mild via FACBot (talk) 29 July 2023 [1].

Edith of Wilton

[edit]
Nominator(s): Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:25, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the late 10th century Benedictine nun, abbess, and saint. This is the second FAC nom; I withdrew the first one because a reviewer requested that I consult other sources. I've done as they requested, so I believe that this bio is now ready for its review to continue. These souces were the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, which I used mostly to support other claims already made, and Rollason's Saints and Relics in Anglo-Saxon England, which was slightly more helpful. I also went through the unaddressed comeents from the first FAC. St Edith is an interesting and at times humorous individual, so please enjoy. Looking forward to further feedback. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:25, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review—pass

(t · c) buidhe 03:29, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ling

[edit]
Fixed.
Not fixed: Hudson, Yorke, Pratt, Watt § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 05:32, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
All done now. I'll go on the record, though, that it's not my practice to put the sfn template for websites or sources I only use once. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:35, 5 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The FAC criteria do include "consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes" (emphasis added). Gog the Mild (talk) 17:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Drive-by comment
I believe that was the last word to fix. If anyone else sees any that I've misssed, please point them out. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:06, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Some further dodgy spellings:
  • "center" (probably not too important as is in alt-text).
  • "Yorke inisist that Edith's seal was another indication of her status and independent weath" – this doesn't appear to be in English of any kind.
  • "is skillfully juxtaposed" – the source spells the adverb the English way: "skilfully".
  • "Edith "had obtained forgiveness from the Lord for all but one of Ælfgifu's offenses, and that she would not cease to intercede for Ælfgifu until she obtained pardon for this offense" – the source uses the English spellings – "offences" and "offence".
  • "her mother's favor" – should be "favour".
General comments to follow shortly, Tim riley talk 11:10, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Tim riley: I believe that I've dealt with the British spellings, with some much-appreciated assistance. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:59, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Tim riley

[edit]
  • "of abbess for three convents" – "for" seems a strange preposition here: one might expect "of"
  • "after the murder of her half-brother ... she might have been offered the English throne" – I think you probably mean "may" rather than "might" here: that is, it is possible that she was offered it, rather than that she could in unspecified circumstances have been offered it.
  • "praised by their contemporary, William of Malmesbury, for their prayers" – as they had more than one contemporary, the phrase "William of Malmesbury" is a restrictive (defining) one rather than a non-restrictive (describing) one, and the commas should not be there.
The above three points all fixed.
  • "her innocence and "virginal fecundity" – I realise this is a quotation, but it would be helpful to have a gloss of this seemingly oxymoronic phrase.
Ha ha, I dunno what it means either, which is why it's a quote. I suppose the easiest fix is to remove the phrase.
  • "an indication of her status and weath" – typo
Fixed.
  • "According to Ridyard ..." this sixty-word sentence could do with chopping in two; I got lost half-way through and had to go back to the start.
Yah, too-long sentences are something I'm working on. Easy fix; I just separated it into two, after "heavenly."
  • "and as Ridyard states, was "firmly grounded ..." – I'd be a bit cautious about the "as" here, which reads like Wikipedia's endorsement of Ridyard's view. (And regardless of that there is either one comma too many or one too few.)
Removed the phrase "as Ridyard states"
  • "Goscelin claims that he wrote the Vita" – another phrasing I recommend caution about: "claims" may suggest to some readers that Goscelin's assertion is untrue or at least dubious.
Okay. There were actually two instances; I replaced "claims" with "reports" in the first, and with "states" in the second.
  • "Dunstan received another vision by St Denys" – does one receive visions by rather than of a saint?
Fixed.
  • "For instance, after King Cnut was saved from a sea storm through Edith's intercession" – this is mentioned twice, and at each mention it is stated as a fact that Edith's intercession saved the king from a sea storm. No doubt Cnut believed this, but I doubt if it can be recorded in 2023 as objective fact.
Well, I disagree. I think it's a real-world perspective problem, but I went ahead and changed it to the Historical present tense.
  • "The only other miracle Goscelin records that occurred during Edith's lifetime was his anecdote about Æthelwold's attempt" – the prose here says that the miracle was the anecdote rather than the attempt and its upshot.
Removed "his anecdote about"

I hope these few points are of use. – Tim riley talk 12:09, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they are. Thank you very much. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:33, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Happy to support. Tim riley talk 06:47, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment on sources

[edit]

Hi Christine. In my comment on your previous nomination, the principal source I suggested was Yorke's article, "The Legitimacy of St Edith". This is possibly the most important and certainly the most extensive discussion of her. It should be consulted, although of course I do not know whether it has points you have not already covered. As I said, if you email me, I can send you a copy. Other sources which may be helpful are the ODNB articles on Wulfthryth and Wulfhild

Also, you said you would delete Dunbar but it is still there. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:04, 29 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Dudley Miles: Thanks for emailing me the Yorke article; you'll see that I used it quite a bit. I checked the ODNB articles you suggested, but choose not to include anything from them because they either supported points already made or were irrevelant to Edith. I also deleted Dunbar as per your request. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:54, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, several paragraphs end without a citation; I would suggest rectifying that early on in the FA process. Unlimitedlead (talk) 22:39, 1 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Unlimitedlead: there was just the one; fixed. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:54, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See [2]] on churches dedicated to Edith. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:16, 3 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For discussion on this see User talk:Dudley Miles#St Edith and sources
I've added the info from this source and even found an image of one of the churches dedicated to Edith. I've always thought that this bio could use more images, so I'm happy that I was able to find it. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 23:01, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think some care is needed in using Bugyis. She is obviously an RS, but her book is about the central Middle Ages, and she may not always be reliable on the tenth century.

You cite her for saying that Edith was abbess of Wilton, but she cites the Wilton Chronicle of 1420, written over 400 years after Edith's death. William of Malmesbury also said that she was abbess of Wilton, but Goscelin does not, and it is rejected by Anglo-Saxon specialists. Sarah Foot points out that it cannot be true because Edith lived under the authority of her mother as abbess of Wilton until she predeceased her. (Veiled Women, II, p. 231).

Goscelin doesn't write about Edith until over 100 years after her death, and he's an accepted authority about Edith and Wilton. I think this brings up the challenge we have in writing WP bios about medieval figures: scholars don't always agree about every aspect of their lives. Some say Edith was abbess; others don't. It's not up to us to make a decision as to who's correct, but it's our responsibility to summarize what the sources say. I could add something about this controversy, and cite Foot by stating something like, "Sarah Foot disagrees that Edith was abbess at Wilton because Edith lived under the authority of her mother." Scholars also disagee if Edith was abbess anywhere, which is addressed her. Anyway, what do you think of that solution?
Bugyis' specific area of medieval studies may not the tenth century, but she's a well-respected scholar and trustworthy, anyway. She discusses Edith in The Care of Nuns to support her point that medieval nuns served the Church and their abbeys in non-traditional ways in roles that were traditionally for males. Bugyis cites Edith as an example of one of the women who did that. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:36, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your description of Edith as Wilton's patron saint is also problematic. You cite Hollis, but she does not use the term. You also cite Bugyis and say "A seal was created during Edith's lifetime and was adopted and used as its official emblem until Wilton Abbey was dissolved in 1539." Also "The seal demonstrates the Wilton community's "confidence in its ability to represent their patron saint as the guarantor of their documents' authenticity, and in her guarantee's enduring significance to those in and out of the community"." Both statements cite Bugyis, but she was referring to the later history of the abbey in the period leading up to its dissolution in 1539, and you give the impression that she is talking about the whole history the abbey after Edith's death. I have never seen the term "patron saint" used in an Anglo-Saxon context and it seems anachronistic, although I cannot find a source to say when it came in. The earliest usage cited in OED is 1703. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:35, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Bugyis is the only one who specifically refers to Edith as a patron saint of Wilton and it's in a quote, so I kept it and removed the other references. Perhaps Bugyis is using the term in the general sense, as a figure that supports another person, institution, or community? Hopefully, this addresses your concern. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:36, 4 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Related to the sourcing, there are no citations pointing to the ODNB, but the source is listed as being used. I find that strange because I clearly remember the ODNB being cited several times in the article. Unlimitedlead (talk) 01:17, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Unlimitedlead, I corrected the mistake, so the ODNB is fully represented now (p. 1, ref27). Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 15:59, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Gog. The sources look OK, but I think that this one needs a detailed source check as I have come across several cases where the text is not supported by the cited pages, as detailed in my comments. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:20, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dudley

[edit]

Some of my comments are follow ups on point in the comments on sources section.

  • You state in the lead that Edith was abbess of Wilton and below that she was appointed abbess of three convents including Wilton. You cite Bugyis for this. Bugyis states that the original source, Goscelin, does not give the name of the third convent but a chronicle of 1420 names it as Wilton. There is a distinction in Wikipedia between High Quality and Reliable Sources. Bugyis is an RS but she is a specialist on the later Middle Ages, and she is not an HQ for the Anglo-Saxon period. RSs should not be used unsupported for controversial statements. HQ sources are Anglo-Saxon specialists, and they all say that the third convent is unknown. You are using an RS to make a claim denied by HQs. This is wrong and the claim should be deleted. Sarah Foot specifically denies that Edith was abbess of Wilton and she is sceptical of the whole story of Edith's appointments as an abbess. She describes it as "somewhat implausible" and suggests that Goscelin confused her with other women called Edith (Veiled Women, II, p. 231). I have made these points above but you insist on retaining the statement that Edith was abbess of Wilton.
Okay, I've made some cuts as per your request. Please let me know if what I did fulfilled your requests; if not, I'll do my best to remedy them.
  • The paragraph starting "A seal was created during Edith's lifetime and was adopted and used as its official emblem until Wilton Abbey was dissolved in 1539." is misleading, as I have pointed above but you have not replied to my points. This statement and one below about Edith being a patron saint are by Bugyis about the late history of the abbey up to its dissolution in 1539. Other statements in the paragraph are about the Anglo-Saxon period, but you mix the points together to make them all apply to the whole history of the abbey after Edith's death. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:25, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
So I cut most of Bugyis' statements about the seal, including her reference to Edith as patron saint. Please let me know if I resolved your concerns; if not, let me know how I can better do that. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 17:52, 6 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Edith of Wilton (c. 961[1] – 16 September 984[2]) was an English nun, saint, and the only daughter of Edgar, King of England". 1. "Nun" should not be unqualified. As you say in the next paragraph, she may have been a secular member of the community. 2. I would say "only known daughter". It is likely that he had other unrecorded daughters.
I removed the word "nun" and replaced it with the phrase "member of the community at Wilton Abbey", even though she had a ceremony in which she was dedicated to the Wilton community to live out her life as a nun. Added the second phrase you suggest, even though it stated that she was the only daughter of Edgar and Wulfthryth.
  • "Edgar probably abducted Wulfthryth from Wilton; when Edith was an infant, Wulfthryth brought her back to the convent, and they both remained there for the rest of their lives." This is only one version. Yorke and Hollis, who are the leading authorities on Edith, both believe that Edgar married Wulfthryth, and that the marriage was dissolved when she returned to Wilton. The lead should reflect this.
Changed as per request.
  • "When she was 15 years old, Edith's father offered her the position of abbess of three convents, but she declined. In 978, after the murder of her half-brother, Edward the Martyr, she may have been offered the English throne, which she also refused." You should make clear that most historians reject both stories.
I removed the paragraph, since it may delve into WP:UNDUE territory. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 15:03, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The chapel was consecrated by St Dunstan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who foretold her imminent death and that the thumb on her right hand would remain uncorrupted. She died three weeks later, at the age of 23, on 16 September 984 and was buried at the chapel she built as she had instructed. Dunstan presided at her translation, which occurred on 3 November 987; her thumb, as Dunstan had foretold, had not decomposed." This treats hagiographical inventions as facts.
  • "According to Hollis, Edith's rich and elaborate wardrobe was vindicated when a candle was accidentally dropped into a chest that stored her clothes; the chest was burnt but her clothes remained untouched and the chest remained in the convent as a reminder of the miracle." Hollis is relating here what Goscelin wrote, not treating the supposed miracle as fact."
  • A general problem is that you several times report claims of miracles as facts. You need to make clear that historians do not believe them. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:55, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Dudley, I disagree that historians don't believe that the miracles happened. Historians report on events from the perspective and worldview of the people they're writing about, who believed that these events actually happened. When someone is evaluated for sainthood, even in our modern era, the investigators look for evidence that the miracles occured in history. I don't have Hollis in front of me right now, but I suspect that she knows that and that she reported the miracles from the perspective of Goscelin, his contemporaries, and the contemporaries of St Edith. Ridyard and Bugyis certainly write from that perspective. Insisting that the miracles couldn't have been real is a kind of OR and is placing our modern sensibilities on bios about saints, something that WP editors shouldn't do. Other bios of saints treat their miracles and visions as facts; for example, Julian of Norwich, an FA (see the Visions subsection). Henry (bishop of Finland), another FA, calls his vita a legend, but it can argued that it treats the miracles it describes in the same way. I could go on, but I suspect you get my point. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:58, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I get your point and I wholly disagree. I do not know of any case of a reliable source treating miracles as fact. Wikipedia is written from the point of view of the rational accounts of modern historians, not reporting medieval (or modern) delusions as facts. The visions sections of Julian reports her visions; it does not treat miracles as facts. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:12, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with Dudley. Reliable, high-quality sources should not be reporting miracles as fact (regardless of personal religious belief), and if a source being used does report them as such, then it is neither HQ nor reliable, and it needs to be excluded from this article. Unlimitedlead (talk) 13:37, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay. So I just went through and made changes as per your requests and suggestions. I hope that it's satisfactory to you all. I also think that all the sources that support the miracle claims are HQ. BTW, for saint articles, whose status of sainthood depends upon their "reported" miracles, there needs to be a discussion of them in their WP bios. At any rate, it is also my hope that this disagreement doesn't get in the way of this bio's promotion to FA. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:00, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Dudley Miles and Unlimitedlead: I have one more thing to add to the above discussion: I can't tell you how tired I am of having to use my thick skin everytime I come to FAC to make sure that articles I work on get the recognition they deserve. "Delusions", really? I don't mind that you disagree, but could you please demonstrate some respect and decorum? Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:25, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Figureskatingfan, I am sorry if you feel that way. FAC is not and should not be a hostile place. It has always been oriented towards the development and recognition of quality articles on Wikipedia. While it is often easy to get heated online, I can vouch for Mr. Miles; as someone who has worked with him for over a year now, he is not the kind of person who engages in disrespectful behavior or any rudeness. If you have experienced any hostile feelings from myself or Mr. Miles, I sincerely apologize, but I can assure you that it was neither my intention nor his intention to cause any ill feelings. As someone who has been educated in Christian theology for well over a decade now, I understand your frustration, but it is important to remember that Wikipedia is a secular and neutral encyclopedia that must account for a non-biased perspective of the world. Unlimitedlead (talk) 16:32, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Christine I do try to be polite to other editors and I did get carried away using the word "delusions". I apologise for that. I hope you have not found any of my other comments disrespectful. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:50, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Unlimitedlead and Dudley, I appreciate the apology. However, Dudley's comments demonstrate his bias; first, that belief in miracles, which was the worldview of saints like Edith and her followers, is delusional. Seoondly, in his comments below he assumes that a young child is unable to make a choice for the religious life, which also demonstrates his bias towards the inclusion of young children into a religious community. Accounting for a non-biased perspective of the world requires that we demonstrate respect for different beliefs and lifestyles, even for those with religious and spiritual beliefs and practices. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:56, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I do not believe in miracles, but neither do the reliable secondary sources we are summarising in our articles, including religious ones such as Sarah Foot, who is a Church of England priest. Our job as Wikipedia editors is to reflect the views of these editors. As to an infant making a choice for a religious life, I do not see anything in the main text to support the comment in the lead. So far as I know, no one ever thought that infants were competent to make such a commitment. In the early medieval period it was thought acceptable for parents to make the choice on behalf of children too young to decide for themselves. From the eleventh century, church leaders found this increasingly unacceptable and insisted that someone entering a religious life had to be old enough to be able to make their own decision. Dudley Miles (talk) 17:52, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It occurs to me that there is a simple solution. If you precede accounts of miracles with an expression like "Goscelin wrote that..." then that will deal with the problem. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:46, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. That seems like a reasonable solution that will allow this nomination to continue on without further tensions. Unlimitedlead (talk) 14:32, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've made this change as per your request. I also changed the wording about Edith's dedication. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:05, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am puzzled where you got the page numbers 1-3 in Yorke's ODNB source. The online version does not have page numbers and Yorke can hardly be the first article in the print version.
Fixed.
  • There is confusion in the dates you give for Edith's birth and death. You cite Yorke, 2008, p. 145, for c.961, but she says there 962 to 965, and you cite Hollis p. 270 for her death on 16 September 984, but Hollis says nothing about Edith's death on that page. It is known that Edith died at the age of 23 on 16 September, but the year is uncertain (Yorke ODNB). Foot says she died 16 Sep 984 (Foot p. 228), but other historians are more cautious. Yorke discusses the issue in 'Legitimacy', pp. 102-104. She is sceptical of a date as early as 961 as it would mean that Edgar had a child by a second marriage at the age of 19, which is possible but she thinks a later date is more likely. Hollis gives Edith's dates as c.961-984 (p. 245) and in ODNB Yorke gives 961x4-984x7, but in 2008, as I said above, she revises the birth range to 962-965. 965 seems late as in ODNB Yorke says that her death cannot be later than 987. I suggest that you give her dates as 961x4-984-7, with a note covering historians' discussion. See also Ridyard, pp. 40-41, n. 125.
The confusion was in the lead; I clarified it by adding the circa template to the dates there. Please refer to note c, which already follows your suggestion and includes a discussion about how estimates to Edith's death have influenced estimates of her birth. It also states in the Birth and childhood section: "Barbara Yorke reports that Goscelin, Edith's hagiographer, is unclear regarding the exact date of her birth.[3]"
  • "their marriage was dissolved. They remained at Wilton Abbey for the rest of their lives." This is confusing as "their" and "They" do not refer to the same people.
Fixed.
  • "Edith chose to enter the religious life". She can hardly have chosen it as she entered as a baby.
  • "who foretold her imminent death and that the thumb on her right hand would remain uncorrupted". "Dunstan presided at her translation, which occurred on 3 November 987; her thumb, as Dunstan had foretold, had not decomposed." This is stating miracles as facts, and the first part is absurd. If he foretold her death and she then died then that would probably be psychological cause and effect rather than a miracle. I would delete.
Instead of deleting, I changed the wording here. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "She was the only daughter of King Edgar and Wulfthryth, who was of noble birth, received her education at Wilton Abbey, and later became its abbess.". As discussed above, historians do not accept that she became its abbess, and it is not in the source cited.
Removed the word "only."
Ok, got it. Removed mention of abbess. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:40, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Her brothers, Edward the Martyr and Æthelred II". For clarity, I suggest "Her half-brothers".
But we don't know if they're her half-brothers or step-brothers, which is why the more inclusive "brothers" is used. Yorke even calls them her brothers, with no qualifiers.
  • "Edgar arranged for Edith the best possible education at Wilton by employing "two foreign chaplains",[20] Radbod of Rheims and Benno of Trier." This rather understates their status. Radbod was a leading scholar and Benna an artist. I can amend if you wish, although it will take me a couple of weeks to get access to one of the sources.
But that is what Yorke calls them (2003, p. 105). I suppose the easiest thing to do is to remove the phrase "two foreign chaplains".
  • "According to Hollis, Edith's rich and elaborate wardrobe was vindicated when a candle was accidentally dropped into a chest that stored her clothes; the chest was burnt but her clothes remained untouched". I would say "According to Goscelin". As you say in the note, he is the source and it will avoid attributing belief in the miracle to Hollis.
Done.
  • "According to Hollis, Goscelin reconciles the apparent contradiction between Edith's humility and her rejection of her royal status" You cite Hollis p. 251 for this, but there is nothing on that page about humility and rejection of royal status.
Reworded to remove all reference to her humility and rejection.
  • "Barbara Yorke states that despite her rejection of her royal status, she retained special advantages and wealth." Yorke rather says despite Goscelin's claim of Edith's rejection. Your wording wrongly implies that Yorke endorses Goscelin on this.
Changed to "Yorke reports Goscelin's implication that Edith held positions of power and influence at her father's court and probably at the courts of Edward the Martyr and Æthelred II, her brothers and that despite her rejection of her royal status, she retained special advantages and wealth." Done to remove any indication of Yorke's endorsement of Goscelin.
  • This is ambiguous as to whether her rejection of royal status was true. As her seal is conclusive evidence against it, I think you need make clear that it was a hagiographic trope (or leave it out). Dudley Miles (talk) 08:44, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done as requested. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:44, 20 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done for now. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 23:01, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "According to Hollis, Goscelin reports that Edith was obliged to wear fine clothing". "According to Goscelin, though, she wore them reluctantly and with a cilice underneath." These statements are cited to Hollis p. 251, but there is nothing on that page about reluctance and a cilice. As you state below in reporting Yorke's comments, historians do not believe Goscelin's claims about Edith's humillity and wearing a cilice.
  • "Goscelin uses this explanation to justify other behaviours". I do not understand what this comment refers to.
For the above comments, I did some cutting and re-wording. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:28, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Yorke reports Goscelin's implication that Edith held positions of power and influence at her father's court and probably at the courts of Edward the Martyr and Æthelred II." Discussions of Edith's importance are confined to sources which are specifically about her. General histories, such as Frank Stentons Anglo-Saxon England and Higham and Ryan's The Anglo-Saxon World do not mention her. She is only mentioned in passing in the ODNB articles on Edgar, Edward and Æthelred, and also in the biographies of Æthelred by Ann Williams, Levi Roach and Ryan Lavelle. The consensus of the great majority of reliable sources - by the failure to mention any role she played - is that she was not politically significant, and for balance you should point this out. The first paragraph of the 'Political and religious influence' section gives a very misleading view of the consensus of historians' opinions.
Clarified 1st sentence as per your suggestion. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:22, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Dudley, what you've said above ventures dangerously in OR territory. There is no source that supports what you call her "passing mentions." The only source that comes close is Yorke's one sentence at the beginning of her "Legitimacy" article, which I've included to satisfy your insistance for more balance. I agree that Edith's importance is confined to sources about her, but that doesn't mean that she wasn't as important as those sources seem to convey, or that she's unimportant because other sources don't mention her. At any rate, I hope that my addition follows your suggestion. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 03:09, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I have said the paragraph is very misleading. Yorke did not say "Although Yorke states that Edith did not have a prominent role in accounts recording the politics of the period". She said that Edward and Æthelred are prominent in accounts of the period and Edith is barely mentioned. This is much stronger and confirms what I say above. She questions the received opinion on the ground that Goscelin, the only source to claim that Edith was influential, deserves to be taken more seriously. This is all spelled out and should be explained by you. Even so, you exaggerate how far Yorke endorses Goscelin. You several times cite p. 106 for Yorke's views, but on p. 105 she states that she is giving a summary of Goscelin's work, thus relating not endorsing his claims. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:19, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Changed wording in sentence to "According to Goscelin, as Yorke summarises..." Hopefully, this deemphasizes Yorke's support of Goscelin's claims. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 15:46, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • See my comment below. I was not suggesting that you de-emphasise Yorke's support of Goscelin's claims. She does support them and is alone is going against the consensus that Edith had no political role whatsoever. Goscelin is the only source to claim that Edith had a political role and other historians reject his account by implication by ignoring it. Yorke spells this out and it is a crucial point which needs to be spelled out in the article. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:23, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your wording is still very misleading: "Although Yorke states that Edith did not have a prominent role in accounts recording the politics of the period" Yorke wrote that "Edith barely merits a mention", which is much stronger. I suggest something along the lines of: "Histories of the politics of the period only mention Edith in passing, but Yorke argues that claims in her Vita by Goscelin that she and her mother played an important role in the intrigues concerning the succession to Edgar should be taken seriously." (Yorke, p. 97) Dudley Miles (talk) 10:02, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Done, with slight differences in wording. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:34, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Very little is known about Edith's governance of the three convents, which might have been Wilton, Nunnaminster, and Barking, outside of Goscelin's works about her." Goscelin says Nunnaminster, Barking and a third one which he does not name. Historians make several guesses as to the third one (or disbelieve all of them), but specialists do not think it was Wilton. This should be made clear.
Easy fix: I removed the list of convents.
  • "Both Edith and St Eadburgh of Winchester, abbess of Nunnaminster Abbey, were praised by their contemporary William of Malmesbury". Eadburgh was not abbess and William was not their congtemporary.
Ok, I removed the misleading phrases.
  • "Goscelin relates, in an anecdote Hollis calls a possible "hagiographic invention",[36] that in 978, after the murder of Edward the Martyr, Edith's brother, she was offered the throne by opponents of Æthelred II". You cite Hollis p. 246 as calling it a possible "hagiographic invention", but it is not in the source cited.
I don't have Hollis in front of me anymore, so I'm taking your word for it and removing the phrase.
  • "Edith had a dream about losing her right eye, which Ridyard calls "highly improbable"[37] and "the creation of an eleventh-century hagiographic imagination which found in the story of Edith's rejection of the earthly a poignant illustration of her devotion to the heavenly"." Why is this relevant in the middle of the tale of Edith being offered the throne?
I think I was using it as support of her legitimacy. You're right; it doesn't work there. I'm not sure it fits anywhere, so I removed the sentences.
  • "Hollis that it probably occurred" This is ungrammatical.
Yes it is. Thanks for the catch.
And I'm all caught up now. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 05:26, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I will ask (as a drive by comment), why is File:Edith of Wilton - MS Royal 14 B V.jpg just floating around and not situated in the article itself? Unlimitedlead (talk) 01:38, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure how that happened. Put the image below, in the first section. Thanks for pointing it out. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 18:05, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think you need to be very careful in describing Edith's supposed appointment as abbess of three nunneries. You have referred to Foot's scepticism, and should also mention that Ridyard disbelieves it (pp. 41-42). In referring to it you need to use phrases such as "according to Goscelin".
I changed the wording as you request.
  • "Edith refused the positions, preferring instead "the obscurity of the cloister"." This should be attributed to Goscelin rather than stated as fact. Also you need to explain that Goscelin says that she did finally agree, as references to her management of thre nunneries below do not make sense if she refused.
I think that confusion is that Goscelin wrote that she was abbess of all three convents, but that she initially refused the appointments. To fix it, I added the word "initially", which hopefully clears it up. I added a phrase about Foot, so I think it's clear that there has been disagreement about it, but that Bugyis takes Goscelin's word for it. Ref35, from Buygis, supports the claim about Edith's management.
  • "Very little is known about Edith's governance of the three convents outside of Goscelin's works about her." This should be attributed to Bugyis.
See above; it already does as you ask. Did you want me to add "according to" again?
  • "According to Yorke, though, the story, along with Goscelin's recounting of Edith and Wulfthryth's involvement in the transfer of Edward's body after his murder, was meant to legitimise Edward's succession as king." It is unclear what story you are referring to and in any case the comment is not in the source. I would delete the sentence.
Clarified by adding that Yorke was talking about the defense of Edith's royal status.
  • "Yorke speculates that the story might not have been as far-fetched as it would seem, stating that it was "a possibility that Edith would leave Wilton to be married if circumstances dictated". This needs clarification. Maybe "The story that Edith was offered the throne is generally dismissed as hagiographic invention, but Yorke argues that it may not have been as far-fetched as it seems,"
Changed to "Yorke dismisses the claim that Edith was offered the throne as a "hagiographic invention",[40] but Yorke also argues that it may not have been as far-fetched as it seems,"
Changed wording, to better follow the source, to: "According to Yorke, the claim that Edith was offered the throne has been dismissed as a "hagiographic invention"..." Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:30, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Goscelin describes two relics of Edith's rule over Nunnaminster, both of which he considered full of mystical significance and were still used by the community when he wrote about them." This is from Bugyis, who states that Edith was not regarded as a former abbess in Nunnaminster sources, but nevertheless accepts Goscelin's claims about the relics as facts. Maybe "Bugyis states that Edith was not recorded as a former abbess in Nunnaminster sources, but Goscelin described what he regarded as two relics of her rule..."
Done.
  • "As Bugyis states, the alb "reflected the virtue she prized most in a monastic leader—humility",[42] a duty the Benedictine Rule required from its monastic leaders. Bugyis also states that Edith might have placed herself as Magdalene on her alb in order to represent her commitment to serve the poor and the outcast.[42] Edith's choice of the costly gems, golden thread, and pearls might have also demonstrated the conflict between her roles as abbess and as the king's daughter, as well as a way to inspire her sisters and to provide them with a model of her kind of service and leadership to the community.[23] The alb also demonstrated that "the liturgical and pastoral ministries of medieval monastic leaders were often inextricably entwined"." Comments such as "As Bugyis states", "Edith's choice of the costly gems" and "The alb also demonstrated" all imply that the alb, and thus Edith's abbacy of Nunnaminster, are facts. You need to make clear that they are claims by Goscelin interpreted by Bugyis.
I believe that my changes follow your suggestions here.
  • "In c. 894, Edith used her own funds to build a chapel". 894 is obviously a typo. It would be better to say shortly before she died as in the sources.
Oops, thanks for the catch. Done as requested.
  • "Goscelin reports that the chapel was dedicated by St Dunstan; towards the end of the ceremony, foretold that she would die in three weeks." It would be better to replace "reports" with "states" to avoid implying that he really told her to her face that she was about to die.
Done.
  • "Dustan was impressed by the way she made the sign of the cross, described by Hollis as executed "idiosyncratically and repeatedly"" This is not in the source.
Cut phrase.
  • "Dunstan clasped her right hand, and weeping, said, "Never shall this thumb which makes the sign of our salvation see corruption"." You should say "According to Goscelin, Dunstan clasped..."
Done.
  • "Edith died at the age of 23, on 16 September 984" This is not in the source, and the exact year is not known.
Removed sentence.
  • You cite ODNB as p. 1. This should be omitted as there are no page numbers in ODNB.
Done.
@Dudley Miles, addressed above comments. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 23:02, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, it could be that those dates were their respective tenures as abbesses, but the source doesn't make that clear, so I removed the dates.
  • "Much of the information Goscelin gathered about Edith came from Brihtgifu (d. 1065)," I would add "directly or indirectly". It is not clear whether Goscelin came to England that early.
But the sources don't specify if Brihtgifu's information was procured in either way. Goscelin might have gotten the information through written correspondence, but that's also conjecture.
  • "Bugyis considered Edith's choice to serve as a godparent important part of Edith's role as a spiritual mother as a part of her duties as abbess because monks and nuns were forbidden to serve as godparents beginning in the sixth century." I do not follow this. You say Edith was to be godparent and then that it was forbidden.
Changed to: "Bugyis considered Edith's choice to serve as a godparent an important part of Edith's role as a spiritual mother and as a part of her duties as abbess, even though monks and nuns were forbidden to serve as godparents beginning in the sixth century." The implication made by Bugyis is that it was another way that Edith subverted traditional duties as an abbess and as a woman religious. Bugyis never clearly states this, but it's strongly implied. Do you think I should state the implication here? Bugyis trusts her readers to get the implication and I think that our readers are capable of it, too.
  • "Her status as a saint is supported by the listing of her tomb at Wilton in On the Resting-Places of the Saints (the Secgan)." You need a few words explaining this document.
Even though it's linked? But okay, done.
  • "which the Wilton nuns "must have been aware from the outset of at least some of those political implications and of their potential usefulness"." The grammar gets lost here.
Solved by breaking it into two sentences, thusly: Goscelin compares Cnut's connection to Edith, especially her piety and miracles, to her familial affections. The Wilton nuns were probably aware of Edith's familial awareness, as well as their "political implications and of their potential usefulness".
  • "According to Ridyard, Edith "terrorized those who were foolish enough to invade the lands of her church and instilled fear in the hearts of those who might be tempted to emulate those invaders".[69] For example, when a man named Brexius seized land owned by the abbey and refused to make amends on his deathbed, one of his relatives who was also a nun at Wilton, reported having a vision in which she witnessed "the rough treatment"[69] at the hands of Edith. Ridyard also reports that not only did Edith protect the convent's properties, but she also protected, at times violently, "one further possession which was essential to its prestige, its prosperity and even its identity—the body of St Edith herself".[69] It was also reported that Edith protected the right of the Wilton community to control her remains and the relics associated with her life and burial. For example, a woman trying to steal the linen frontal from Edith's tomb was miraculously immobilised. Goscelin relates another miracle, of uncertain date, in which a nun ordered a dying child's mother out of the room where Edith's mother Wulfthryth died because the nun thought it was disrespectful. The mother brought the baby to Edith's shrine by mistake, but the child was miraculously healed." These comments should all be attributed to Goscelin. Ridyard merely relates what Goscelin wrote.
Done as requested.
  • "It was also reported that Edith protected the right of the Wilton community to control her remains and the relics associated with her life and burial. For example, a woman trying to steal the linen frontal from Edith's tomb was miraculously immobilised. Goscelin relates another miracle, of uncertain date, in which a nun ordered a dying child's mother out of the room where Edith's mother Wulfthryth died because the nun thought it was disrespectful. The mother brought the baby to Edith's shrine by mistake, but the child was miraculously healed." "It was also reported" is too vague. This is presumably from Goscelin, but the comments are not in the source cited.
Yes, that's an error. Not able to find these accounts, so I removed them.
  • You should also give the story of Cnut questioning Edith's sanctity because she was a daughter of a lustful tyrant. This is in Yorke 2008, p. 143. Yorke does not give the end of the story, in which Edith miraculously terrifies Cnut into submission, and I can add this if you do not have a source for it (Williams of Malmesbury's History of the Bishops).
Yes, I'd appreciate that. Why didn't Yorke include it? ;)
Thanks as always.
  • "Edith's cult did not seem to have been established in the Wilton community until c. 1040, when she reportedly appeared in almost identical dreams to Ælfgifu, the wife of Æthelred II (who promoted Edith's cult) and Ælfflæd, wife of King Edward the Elder." This is wrong. The source says that she appeared to Ælfgifu and Ælfhild, mid-eleventh century future abbesses of Wilton, not long dead kings' wives. In view of the number of errors, I wonder whether it would be best if Christine withdraws the nomination and does her own thorough source check before re-nominating. Gog the Mild and Serial Number 54129 what do you think? Dudley Miles (talk) 12:50, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I hate to say it, but I'm inclined to agree. It looks like a detailed spot check might just produce more of what Dudley's uncovered, and that would be dispiriting for the nom. And myself, for that matter. SN54129 15:25, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Serial Number 54129, @Dudley Miles: But why would we have to do that? Dudley is almost finished with his review and he's been doing a thorough and excellent source review as he's been going along. It seems like most of the errors, for some reason, are with my summarization of Hollis, so what would you two think about removing her from this bio? Much of her article doesn't add all that much to this bio, anyway. I also think, to be frank, that this review demonstrates a difference of opinion and philosophy between Dudley and I, although I think that we've been working things out as we're going along. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:22, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The difference in outlook between me and Christine has not proved to be a problem in practice. The problem is the reliability of the sourcing. I do at least two thorough source checks before I nominate an article. This one does not seem to have been checked by the nominator at all. This puts an excessive burden on reviewers, and it is not a solution to remove a major source./ Dudley Miles (talk) 18:23, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator request

[edit]


Source spot check

[edit]

Placeholder. SN54129 14:45, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose by David Fuchs

[edit]

Forthcoming this weekend. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 18:02, 21 July 2023 (UTC) Oppose while there's a lot of good here, overall I found the text difficult to parse and left me with questions throughout. I get that the sources cannot be authoritative or certain about many elements of the story, but at present the article text is constantly fighting with itself and leaving me no idea what the consensus is on certain matters, or if something is settled or just one view of what happened.[reply]

  • What's the reasoning for the citations in the lead? Is there that much fighting about her dates of birth or that she's an English patron saint?
  • "Edith's parents might have been married, but when Edith was an infant, Wulfthryth returned with Edith to Wilton Abbey and their marriage was dissolved" If we're not sure she was married, it's weird to say at the end of the sentence their marriage definitively existed to be dissolved.
  • "Few miracles were attributed to her that supported Edith's canonisation and her cult did not become popular and widespread for 13 years after her death" If the point is that her popularity didn't manifest for 13 years, it seems like saying "...widespread until 13 years after her death" is a clearer way of stating this.
  • "and received her education at Wilton Abbey." Was this Edith, or Wulfthryth? With the structure of the sentence, it's unclear.
  • "Barbara Yorke reports that" — who? And why does this discussion about her DOB come two sentences after the mention of her DOB?
  • "Yorke also reports that modern scholars are uncertain regarding Wulfthryth's status." As in she might not have been of noble birth, or something else? The following sentences make me think it's about Wulfthryth and Edgar's relationship status, but then we run into the same issue as the lead with regards to the marriage dissolution. It also just feels like we spend a ton of words and namedropping to just say "we don't know if they were married or not", and could be tightened to be succinct and clearer.
  • "Stephanie Hollis believes that" who?
    • This sentence is a good example of another place where excessive wordiness gets in the way and the text seems to argue with itself; Hollis seems to simultaneously suggest that Edith was a lay member, but then backtracks and says it's unclear. So which is it?
  • Is this description of when Edith was two and got presented with presents from her ceremony dedicating her to religious life, or another occasion? If the former, why is it again divorced from the proximate mention?
  • "Edgar arranged for Edith the best possible education at Wilton by employing "two foreign chaplains",[20][7] Radbod of Rheims and Benno of Trier.[21][7]" According to whom? We've just gotten a bunch of "so and so said Y", so is this something the sources all agree upon?
  • "According to Goscelin, Edith's rich and elaborate wardrobe was vindicated" vindicated to whom? The section suggests but doesn't clarify if her and her mother's lifestyle was the subject of criticism, despite the subheading.
  • Not knowing anything about 10th century English politics, the stuff in "political and religious influence" just flies over my head. I think the article desperately needs some context about what was going on that nobility would be trying to curry favor with Edith. The entire Career section suffers from this, partially I think due to facts not being arranged in a more chronological order.
  • "Very little is known about Edith's governance of the three convents outside of Goscelin's works about her." Edith's possible governance, surely, since we've just spent three sentences suggesting it's not likely she actually held those positions?
  • "along with Goscelin's recounting of Edith and Wulfthryth's involvement in the transfer of Edward's body after his murder" and suddenly, murder? Never followed up on?
  • There's places throughout where I think there's an overuse of quotes. Why does "from existing books" need to be quoted instead of just saying Goscelin drew on oral testimony and prior written records? This especially gets bad in the Sainthood section, where the quotes by Ridyard seem rather breathless and excessive (I don't think scholars are uncritically saying that god struck some workmen blind?)
  • "Goscelin [wrote Vita Edithe] because Wilton "needed the assistance of a powerful supporter""—who said this?

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 18:35, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Girth Summit

[edit]

I'll try to do a more thorough review over the next couple of days, but a few points jump out at me from a skim over.

  • "Many of the miracles that occurred later..." Shouldn't that be 'miracles that were reported later'? We surely aren't stating as fact that miracles occurred?
Changed.
  • 'For example, she appeared to Æthelred, to an official with a rank second to the king, to an "unnamed secular magnate", and to Dunstan.' Same sort of thing - I've got no problem with us wording this so that we say that these people reported (or similar synonym) that she appeared to them; we shouldn't say that she did in Wikipedia's voice.
Also done.
  • 'Cnut, who became king of England in 1016, had a devotion to Edith after she seemingly interceded on his behalf and seemingly saved him from a sea storm, the reason, along with wanting to associate himself with Æthelred and his family, he built Edith a golden shrine storing her relics.' This sentence doesn't work for me. First we've got two instances of 'seemingly' very close to each other, which should be reworded. Secondly, I think it probably needs splitting - something like this might work: 'Cnut, who became king of England in 1016, had a devotion to Edith after it appeared that she had interceded on his behalf and saved him from a sea storm. This, along with wanting to associate himself with Æthelred and his family, inspired him to build a golden shrine to store Edith's relics.'
Good suggestion; I followed it with one difference: I replaced the first word in your second sentence ("this") with "his experience" because I don't think it fits an encyclopedic tone. You can change it back if you like, though.
  • '...and as a result Edith's feast day is widely kept.' Is her feast day widely kept? I was raised a Roman Catholic, and I've never heard of it. Should this be reworded, some that we're indicating that it was widely kept at the time?
You were probably raised as a Roman Catholic in the U.S., and no, St. Edith isn't as well known there. In Southern England, yes, she's well-known. Although (forgive this digression, please), I was chatting with one of my church lady friends from my parish and mentioned that I've been working on this bio and she told me that St. Edith was her confirmation saint. And she grew up near Deadwood, North Dakota! ;)
No - I was raised in Scotland, but my mother is English, and I've spent much of my adult life in England (Bath, then London, currently in York). I've still never heard of St Edith's day. I don't know what we mean by saying that it is 'widely kept' (and even if it were widely celebrated today, wouldn't it be a bit of a leap to say that Cnut's recognition of her directly led to that? Presumably there were lots of other saints that he recognised, who are not widely celebrated today). Girth Summit (blether) 14:30, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'For example, after a pilgrim from Saxony, along with his twelve companions, were sentenced to being shackled together for a year, which resulted in perpetual movement that did not stop when they were released. The pilgrims travelled to Wilton, slept before Edith's tomb for three days, and woke up to find himself healed, thus releasing him from judgment of his crimes.' I can't make out the initial sentence - the whole thing seems to be building up to a verb which never comes. Plus I'm a bit confused about how being shackled to twelve companions would bring about perpetual movement? The second sentence is also confused - the subject of the sentence starts out plural (the pilgrims), but then switches to singular 'woke up to find himself healed'. The whole paragraph needs a bit of sorting out.
I can see the confusion. I was trying to explain that one of the thirteen men condemned in this way was a pilgrim who travelled to Wilton for Edith's healing. I think my changes have made it clearer. The "perpetual movement" is how both Goscelin and Bugyis described it.
Both sentences are still ungrammatical in a number of ways. How about this: "For example, a pilgrim from Saxony and his twelve companions were sentenced to being shackled together for a year, which resulted in perpetual movement that did not stop when they were released. The pilgrim travelled to Wilton, slept before Edith's tomb for three days, and woke up to find himself healed, thus releasing him from judgment of his crimes." Girth Summit (blether) 14:36, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More to follow. Girth Summit (blether) 17:59, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Looking forward to it. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 22:22, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've put a couple of comments above regarding two concerns I already raised. If those were addresses, and if David Fuchs's points were to be addresses to his satisfaction, I would probably be in a position to support. Girth Summit (blether) 14:40, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note

[edit]

This has been open for nine weeks and has garnered just the single general support. With a wall of comments that cause it to feel more like a PR than a FAC. I keep checking in, seeing things happening and thinking that I will give it a little longer, but unless the nomination makes significant further progress towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Since I posted the comment above David has formally opposed promotion and Dudley has repeated their dissatisfaction with the sourcing. There is no sign of a consensus to promote forming and so I am going to archive this for the issues identified to be worked on off-FAC. The usual two-week hiatus rule will apply.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 27 July 2023 [3].

Fest i hela huset

[edit]
Nominator(s): Eurohunter (talk) 22:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good Article "Fest i hela huset" is a song by Swedish musician Basshunter recorded during the season of the Swedish edition of Big Brother. The article was presented in Did you know, and it passed Guild of Copy Editors as well was peer-reviewed. Is it worth to mention in article that 2023 single "Ingen kan slå (Boten Anna)" entered Swedish singles chart first time since "Fest i hela huset" in 2011? Eurohunter (talk) 22:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First-time nomination

[edit]

Media review

Aoba47

[edit]

Apologies in advance, but I oppose this nomination based on the prose. I do not think it meets 1a of the featured article criteria (i.e. being well-written). I believe there are substantial prose issues that would be better handled in a peer review setting rather than a FAC. Here are some instances of issues with the prose, but it is not limited to these examples.

  • The length of the song is awkwardly brought up in the first line of the actual article. It is good information to include in the article, but it does not really make sense with how it is currently included.~
  • The word "created" is unclear in this part, (was created by Basshunter and participants of the Swedish edition of the Big Brother franchise). The infobox clarifies this as writing credits, but it is not clear here. It is also unclear who Simon Danielsson, Gurkan Gasi, Sara Jönsson and Sonia Kamau are, and although I assume they are the Big Brother contestants, this should be more clearly defined.
    • Comment: I changed it to "and is the result of collaboration between Basshunter and participants of the Swedish edition of the Big Brother franchise". Is that a good idea? Eurohunter (talk) 16:55, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • No. It does not address my point. Again, the "result of collaboration" is vague, and the prose does not explicitly make clear who Simon Danielsson, Gurkan Gasi, Sara Jönsson and Sonia Kamau are and leaves the readers to assume that they must be Big Brother contestants. Aoba47 (talk) 17:07, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment: I don't have the other idea. For the second issue I changed it to "The song was written by Basshunter and Big Brother members Simon Danielsson, Gurkan Gasi, Sara Jönsson and Sonia Kamau (...)". Eurohunter (talk) 20:40, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment: I changed it to ""Fest i hela huset" is a collaboration between Basshunter and participants of the Swedish edition of the Big Brother franchise." and moved information about song length to the second sentence. To the second issue, I added "Big Brother members". Eurohunter (talk) 16:33, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This sentence (The song was Basshunter's first release since his previous single, "Saturday", which was released on 5 July 2010.) is awkwardly phrased and repeats release/released.
    • Comment: I'm not that sure if "release" and "released" repeats in meaningful way. I don't think that it's possible to describe it differently. I have no other idea how to construct it. Eurohunter (talk) 16:55, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • Repeating release/released in the same sentence likes this makes the prose repetitive and less engaging. There are a lot of ways to word this information without the repetition. Just off the top of my head, you could do something like: ("Fest i hela huset" was Basshunter's first single since "Saturday", which was released on 5 July 2010.) Aoba47 (talk) 17:07, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • This part (to make the best of the special conditions associated with producing a song while participating in a reality television series) is awkwardly phrased and would benefit from revision and further specification. I could understand the basic idea of what you are meaning here, but it could be clearer.
  • I would say the song's connection with Big Brother as a whole could be better introduced and discussed as a whole. Even though I am familiar with Big Brother, I feel these parts need improvement. For instance, it is not clear how this is "Basshunter vs Big Brother" as the infobox puts it as the versus element is not made clear to me at least.
    • Comment: "Basshunter vs Big Brother" is taken from release and yes sometimes in music industry collaborations are called "versus" instead of "with" or "featuring". I used to think about this in general, and I have no idea why that is. We could ask this question under any release with artists presented as "versus". Eurohunter (talk) 16:55, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, this is not an exhaustive list, but instead, these are just some examples of areas that need improvement. Apologies again, but I just do not think this nomination is prepared. Best of luck with the article in the future. Aoba47 (talk) 23:11, 22 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please do not use graphics or templates. This is something explicitly pointed out in the FAC instructions (i.e. Do not use graphics or complex templates on FAC nomination pages.) as they slow down the page load time. Apologies in advance for being nitpick-y with this one, but I am not required to comment further as someone giving an oppose (or as a reviewer in general) so I would avoid that kind of language in the future.
  • I disagree with your comments. I still think elements such as the song length is awkwardly positioned in the article, and I still think the Big Brother aspect of the song is not well-explained or well-written. Repeating what I have said above, I believe this article would benefit from a substantial amount of work and revision that is best done outside of the FAC space. Aoba47 (talk) 17:07, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: So if I move song length one sentence further as mentioned above it will be okay? I could explain what is whole Big Brother franchise. Is that a good idea? Eurohunter (talk) 20:29, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • I am ending my review here. As I have stated above, the comments I have provided above are not an exhaustive list about how I feel the article's prose is not up to a FA level. They are just some examples. My oppose stands, and I will no longer engage in a back-and-forth conversation here. Hopefully, other reviewers will help with this FAC. I do not think this article is ready for this nomination. Aoba47 (talk) 21:07, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment: I see the lead is the biggest issue here and I will work on it and other issues as well. I will try to improve everything today. Btw. if the comments you have provided above are not an exhaustive list you can add all your doubts and I will work on it, because now it's kinda "there is an issue but I will not tell you" - while apart from nomination the most important thing is just make article as best as possible. Eurohunter (talk) 06:37, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment: I extended the lead. Eurohunter (talk) 20:45, 25 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SC

Sorry, but it's an oppose from me too. Looking only at the lead, I see the following:

  • A comma splice in the first line isn't the best way to start things off
  • Is one a "member" of Big Brother?
  • "with Basshunter being responsible for the production": this is clumsily phrased
  • "recorded in the assignment room of Big Brother with its contestants." Ditto – it's not entirely clear what is being said here
  • "None of the contestants had worked with music professionally earlier." This is very clumsy grammatically
  • "Ultimately": wrong word choice

That's just the lead, and I could probably add to these if I wanted to. A quick glance at the next section shows similar problems. I advise withdrawing and working on this a bit more, possibly going through PR or GOCE to round off some of the edges. - SchroCat (talk) 13:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note
Per above, the nom appears underprepared so I'm going to archive and ask that improvements be worked on outside the pressure of the FAC process; I realise a peer review was opened earlier in the year but it wasn't well-patronised so I think another would be in order before any future nom here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 13:14, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 26 July 2023 [4].

Uranium mining in the Bancroft area

[edit]
Nominator(s): CT55555(talk) 15:50, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the history of Bancroft, Ontario the mineral capital of Canada, and for some years just after the second world war, a globally significant source of uranium. This article covers the economic impact and the environmental and health legacies of mining uranium. CT55555(talk) 15:52, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ling

[edit]
  • Reynolds, Nila (1979). Bancroft. A Bonanza of Memories. The Bancroft Centennial Committee. pp. 184–193, 223. 'Missing ISBN. So I go to worldcat and copy/paste aythor, date, title (or some variation thereof— sometimes including the date or author's first name brings up no results). So I get this. Two different versions. What to do? In this case we're lucky: One version has 150 pages, and the other has 250 (which strikes me as a big difference). Your cite is from pages beyond 150, so voila, we have oclc=8091686.
  • [Oh by the way, you used {{cite journal}} on a different source that was actually report... I fixed that too.] § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 17:58, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Parsons, Michael B.; Friske, Peter W. B.; Laidlow, Allison M.; Jamieson, Heather E. (2014). I've never seen anyone cite an abstract page before. In this case, the full text of the paper is available on researchgate.net and The Government of Canada. The original Master's degree thesis by Allison Marie Laidlow is available online too... I found that out via google.Atlantic Geology is missing an issn, which you can find via Wikipedia. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 18:19, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • What makes "Creation/Evolution Journal" WP:RS? § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 18:30, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Thanks for the fixes! I added the ISSN and changed the url for Parsons etc.
    2. Regarding Creation/Evolution: It is published by National Center for Science Education which seems to be a reputable non profit with a 42 year track record of (their words) "Promoting science education". The org is lead by environmental scientist Ann Reid. I see the publisher is quoted in news as an expert on matters of climate science and education, examples: 1 2 It seems (CUNY source here) that the paper cited, was originally published in the Journal of Geological Education, and that seems credible, but I could not verify it. This was a point of discussion between the GA reviewer @Reidgreg and I, you can see our chat about that [[5]] so, for what it's worth (this is only my second FA review, I am not sure of norms) I took that process to mean at least an unconnected editor thought it was OK.
    CT55555(talk) 22:33, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I found it at Taylor & Francis here [6] but I only have access to the abstract. Jeffery Richard Wakefield (1988) The Geology of Gentry's “Tiny Mystery”, Journal of Geological Education, 36:3, 161-175, DOI: 10.5408/0022-1368-36.3.161 – Reidgreg (talk) 23:35, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another wonderful tool: Google Scholar, says: "Wakefield, Jeffery Richard. "The Geology of Gentry's “Tiny Mystery”." Journal of Geological Education 36.3 (1988): 161-175." So now you can go to either your local library or WP:RX (be sure to specify that it's in Taylor & Francis in the subject line) or whatever, get a copy of that. Then you verify the data is all there, change to the corresponding page numbers, and you're bullet proof. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 22:52, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the tip. I wasn't aware of WP:RX. I've sought help there. CT55555(talk) 23:25, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Mdaniels5757 states "It appears to be in that journal, but I don't have direct access. The citation is above." and provides the citation:
    Wakefield, Jeffery. "The Geology of Gentry's "Tiny Mystery"". Journal of Geological Education. 36 (3): 161–175. doi:10.5408/0022-1368-36.3.161.
    Noting that the CUNY source says this, and @Reidgreg's comment above, do you consider this sufficiently confirmed, @Lingzhi.Renascence? CT55555(talk) 23:50, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • You either need to verify that the creation/evolution journal is WP:RS, or you need to switch to the other journal. Reliability is not associative. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 01:18, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Got it. Have switched it for the Journal of Geological Education one. CT55555(talk) 01:50, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Cited four times. Page numbers? While we're at it, page numbers for any publication that actually has page numbers (sometimes full-text on the web may not have page numbers)... [Years ago, I threw a tantrum because the archaeology folks were listing huge page ranges, like entire chapters or something. I lost the argument, they won, because no one wanted to alienate an entire wikiproject. As is so very often the case, please refer to Ling.Nut's Law. So you can try to skip page numbers, if you have an entire wikiproject covering your back.]  § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 02:02, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks for your advice on this, but I'm now confused on two points:
      1 - if you are saying the range of page (161-175) is OK, but I think you are not. And yet, I don't know how to resolve that. Because I read the Creation/Evolution version, and someone else verified that "it seemed" to appear in the Journal of Geological Education and it seems implausible that CUNY are incorrectly saying it appeared there first. So I don't know how to fix that, the library I have access to doesn't have access to Journal of Geological Education that far back and I can't find it on the Wikipedia Library either.
      2 - What more I'd need to do to verify that Creation/Evolution Journal us a reliable source. I think and hope I made a reasonable argument for that above. Did it convince you? What more would I need to do to get to that point? CT55555(talk) 03:17, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Sorry I am so confusing. Answering all questions as best as I can:
      1) The page range is not OK with me, but if you can find six or seven people from a relevant wikiproject to bang their collective shoes on the table, you will probably win.
      2) You can request the journal at WP:RX. The subject line of your request is not actually correct. We don't need to verify that it appeared in Journal of Geological Education. We know it did. We need to verify that the specific info you cited from the (potentially) unacceptable journal is also in the acceptable one, and if so, on what pages? [I have many times seen cases where a peer-reviewed and a non-peer-reviewed version of the same paper exists. Very often, the peer-reviewed one will hedge, correct or even delete some assertions from the non-peer-reviewed one].
      3) The question that is hardest for me to answer is, is that first journal RS? Just because journalists cite it doesn't mean jack to me (at least). The paper was cited 21 times in its peer-reviewed version, but alas, many of those cites are embedded in the creation/evolution controversy. The citing sources may not be RS, or they may just be citing it in the context of a statement that "one example of a controversy is...". Or.... etc.
      4) So to summarize, you have 2 paths: get the peer-reviewed version to satisfy my standards, or bypass me by getting at least 2 or 3 people to agree with you that the other one is RS. Choose whichever one is easier. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 03:42, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks for the clear explanation.
      1) I won't try to round up a gang of supporters, that doesn't seem like the right way to do things, and seems like I'd need to WP:CANVAS. I'd rather assume your suggestion is the best way forward, as I'm new to this and I assume you are not.
      2) I've corrected my request at WP:RX. Fingers crossed.
      3) A journal published by a respectable scientific focussed organisation seems like the hallmark of a reliable source to me. Scientific American and Education Week (and others I saw) all using it as a source for scientific issues seem to support that too. I think this is about the journal being reliable, rather than citations of the specific article. I'm wondering why we'd doubt it's reliability. It's a journal published by a scientific organisation. Why would we doubt its reliability? Am I naive? Missing something?
      4) Basically I'm trying both paths, trying to get the article, with no idea how likely that is (first time at WP:RX) and also hopefully advocating fairly that the Creation/Evolution Journal is a WP:RS. Convincing? All fingers crossed, lol. CT55555(talk) 04:05, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      I'm happy to report that I've got a copy of the original publication and added page numbers. Thanks to @Mdaniels5757 for their support! CT55555(talk) 15:46, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(←) } I'm happy to hear your happy report... I think there may or may not be a need for a nontrivial amount of elbow grease applied to the task of using page numbers (whenever possible) to the cites here. I very often offer to convert articles' cites into {{sfn}} and {{sfnm}} for that purpose. I am strange: I enjoy such conversions. It's like the feeling you get when you've got a messy closet and you clean the whole thing. So I will do that for you, if you wish. I do have stacks of final exams to grade, and my own wiki stuff going on too. But I could get to it in a couple days.... If you wish. But you would have to hunt down every page number. Let me know.. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 16:26, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am not good with the citation formats, so for me this is a necessary-evil type of task, I very much dislike it. So I am delighted with your offer to help and keen to collaborate to get this article to the right standard. CT55555(talk) 16:40, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I thought business meetings and visiting in-laws were the only two necessary evils, since both involve getting together to accomplish nothing except the ability to tell everyone we got together. :-) You could get a start by finding the page number of every cite that has a page number. You can write it down somewhere or something. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 21:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I might be missing something. Did you mean find the page number of every cite without one? CT55555(talk) 22:08, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am thinking of "has a page number in the original source", and you are thinking "has a page number in the citation in the WP article". I mean, if it does have the former but doesn't have the latter. § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 22:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Got it. I have now added page numbers to everything that I think has pages numbers. Phew! CT55555(talk) 16:53, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note Ling left a message on my talk page to note that they are currently travelling and unable to reply/update/comment. CT55555(talk) 19:42, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Updated Note: Ling left an updated message on my talk page saying that health issues are delaying their reply, and seem likely to do so for some days at least. CT55555(talk) 13:53, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Update: Quoting @Lingzhi.Renascence Hi again. I am not editing Wikipedia anymore. Consider any comments I made on your FAC to be closed as resolved. (diff) CT55555(talk) 01:05, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • There are a huge number of images relative to the length of the article, which is causing layout issues
  • The "☢ indicating locations" are really not visible at the given image size
  • File:Madawaks_Mine_1962.jpg is missing a US tag, but why specifically is it believed to be PD in Canada? Ditto File:Bicroft_Uranium_Mine,_1956.png, File:Arthur_Shore_1955.jpg, File:Bulldozer_at_Faraday_Mine.jpg
  • File:Headframe,_July_30_1956,_Canadian_Dyno_Mines_Limited,_Cardiff_Township.png is missing a US tag. Ditto File:Headframe,_Greyhawk_Uranium_Mine,_11_July_1956.png
  • File:Central_Ontario_Railway_in_Bancroft.jpg: source link is dead, missing a US tag
  • File:Henry_Joseph_Maloney_portrait_photo.jpg needs a stronger FUR
The GA review did highlight that maybe there are too many photos. I think this confirms that I should remove some of them. I can do that.
More importantly, you have just highlighted that I've made a grave error. I have uploaded a number of images based on an incorrect understanding of PD in Canada, thinking that anything over 50 years old was good, but a more careful reading of the criteria just made me realise that this is wrong and that things need to be pre-1949.
I don't know why anything would have a US tag, these are photos taken in Canada, but the fact that you are asking me this, hints that maybe I'm missing something?
I think I urgently need to delete some files due to my erroneous understanding of PD Canada! I've just read how to speedy delete the files from commons, but will pause briefly in case I'm in error again. Can you confirm, I've messed up right, and should get these speedy deleted ASAP? CT55555(talk) 03:27, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Any image hosted on Wikimedia Commons needs to be free/PD in both its country of origin (in this case Canada) and also the US. There are three pathways by which an image could be PD in Canada: Crown Copyright published over 50 years ago, non-Crown Copyright photo created before 1949, or author died before 1972. If you can demonstrate any one of those three for the images above, and also demonstrate that they are in the public domain in the US, they can stay where they are. If you can demonstrate they are PD in the US but not Canada, we have the option of hosting locally - images hosted on English Wikipedia need only be free/PD in the US, not country of origin. If you can demonstrate neither PD in the US nor PD in Canada, they need to be deleted unless there is a case for fair use. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:43, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
These images are likely all privately published, all from around the 1950s, I have no way to tell when the photographer(s) died, but on the balance of probabilities, probably not before 1972. It is clear that I've completely misunderstood the rules and had accidentally been using a shortcut of (more than 50 years old). I'll do some speedy deleting. I've also already removed various photos from the article, obviously I'll remove the ones with the copyright issues very shortly. CT55555(talk) 03:47, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm...and now I am wondering about fair use. I don't have experience in arguing things are fair use unless they are logos, book covers, and photos of deceased people. Is it credible to argue fair use for photos of old mines? CT55555(talk) 03:54, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Theoretically you can have any image as fair use as long as a credible case could be made for each of the criteria. That being said, the more non-free images you want to include, the stronger the rationale needs to be for each - and you've already got one which isn't so strong. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:59, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Update: the Bicroft mine photo was published by the Geological Survey of Canada, a government agency, the PD Canada tag is correct. But I think the only US tag for non-US photos is PD-US-expired-abroad and it has a higher bar, so that seems to rule it out, but it seems illogical to even consider the Canadian rules if the US ones will trump them anyway, I feel like I'm missing something again. Sorry. Maybe I should just focus on a fair use rationale? CT55555(talk) 04:27, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not the only tag available - take a look at commons:COM:HIRTLE. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:36, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Great news. The black and white images of the mines were all published by a government agency. The correct tag is now in them PD-Canada-Crown and there is a letter on file saying the URAA doesn't apply and therefore I think that covers things in USA too...? CT55555(talk) 04:52, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I really appreciate the guidance you've given me so far. I will need to use that to change some tags on images I've uploaded that don't (or not longer) appear in this article. Since your first review, I've improved some tags, and removed most of the photos. Is the current situation with the images satisfactory now? CT55555(talk) 19:12, 12 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria just a ping about my question from 10th...? CT55555(talk) 19:43, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Correct, Canadian Crown copyright-expired works are fine.
Regarding your question from the 12th: some images are missing alt text, and File:Canada_geological_map-WCSB.JPG needs a source for the data presented. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Noted. Other feedback prompted me to remove that image and add another. Alt text is needed and I'll do that soon, once we get consensus on which image to use. CT55555(talk) 18:24, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Update, have added alt text to all images. CT55555(talk) 20:16, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria do you consider all image-related issues resolved? CT55555(talk) 14:40, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:57, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions from Larataguera

[edit]

Lead

  • It isn't until the very end of the first paragraph that I'm clear whether the area is actively mined. The first sentence(s) could say, "Bancroft is one of two major uranium producing areas in Ontario. It was mined from 1956–1964 and again from 1975–1982".
    The additional background about the Canadian Shield and the seven other areas in Canada should come in a later paragraph, after the scope of the article is well-defined and the notability of the subject is established.
  • There's some redundancy with the sentence, Mining resumed when uranium prices rose during the 1970s energy crisis, but this was not long lasting, because we already established that there was a second mining period from 1975-82.
  • $1,500 million -> $1.5 billion

Uranium mining

  • Placement of the first {{main article}} template is awkward, because it makes me think that Fission Mine would summarise the content of this whole section. I suggest removing it, and link Fission mine at first mention.
  • The sentence Uranium mining operations in the Bancroft area were conducted at four sites, beginning in the early 1950s and concluding by 1982. is very clear and concise and probably belongs in the lead. Possibly as the first sentence.

General comments I do not find any major gaps in information missing from this article. Larataguera (talk) 03:20, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this feedback.
On the Lead: I've made changes #1 and #3 to the lead. I'd like to push back on #2. One on hand, I agree. On the other hand, a lot of dates are presented to the reader and I think this reminder/context is helpful. Would you support me keeping that sentence as it is, at least finding a different way to say it? CT55555(talk) 13:11, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On Uranium mining I've made the first change. The edits I made to the lead earlier, I think, solve the issue raised in #2. Do you agree? CT55555(talk) 13:15, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's just a suggestion, but I still feel like the redundancy is awkward. How about this?:
Uranium mining around Bancroft, Ontario was conducted at four sites, beginning in the early 1950s and concluding by 1982. Bancroft was one of two major uranium-producing areas in Ontario, and one of seven in Canada, all located along the edge of the Canadian Shield. In the context of mining, the "Bancroft area" includes Haliburton, Hastings, and Renfrew counties, and all areas between Minden and Lake Clear. Activity in the mid-1950s was described by engineer A. S. Bayne in a 1977 report as the "greatest uranium prospecting rush in the world".
As a result of activities at its four major uranium mines, Bancroft experienced rapid population and economic growth throughout the 1950s. By 1958, Canada had become one of the world's leading producers of uranium; the $274 million of uranium exports that year represented Canada's most significant mineral export. By 1963, the federal government had purchased more than $1.5 billion of uranium from Canadian producers, but soon thereafter the global supply of uranium increased, prices fell and the government cancelled all contracts to buy. Mining resumed when uranium prices rose during the 1970s energy crisis, but this second period of activity ended by 1982.
Three of the uranium mines are decommissioned, and one is undergoing rehabilitation. A twofold increase in lung cancer development and mortality has been observed among former mine workers. Bancroft continues to be known for gems and mineralogy.
Larataguera (talk) 03:37, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I like it. I've made the change. CT55555(talk) 14:21, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have any further concerns or suggestions. This article looks good to me. Larataguera (talk) 19:13, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hi Larataguera, I was wondering if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:12, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I tend toward support for this article. In my earlier review, I tried to ensure that the article was complete, and I didn't find any glaring omissions. I did not review the information about geology, and would defer to other editors who have commented below on that part of the article.
    The prose is also pretty good. There remain a few places where prose could probably be improved, notably:
    • Bancroft is one of only five major locations in the world where uranium is extracted from intrusive rocks – the others being Rössing uranium mine, Trekkopje mine, Utah, Twin Buttes, Ilimaussaq deposit and Palabora. Globally, uranium is mined from intrusive rock at seven different locations with Bancroft being the only one where it is mined from intrusive rocks of the pegmatite type. Are there five or seven other such locations? Is it 5 major and 2 minor? Can these two sentences be consolidated and clarified? Possibly: "Uranium is only mined from intrusive rocks at (5? 7?) locations in the world, and Bancroft is the only location where it is mined from intrusive rocks of the pegmatite type". (Perhaps with the list of other locations in a footnote?)
    Otherwise, a few increasingly minor edits like:
    • Aside from uranium, the Bancroft area and its mines produced sought-after gemstones... -> "Aside from uranium, mines in the Bancroft area produced sought-after gemstones...."
    but nothing I'd hold up the FA review over. Hope this helps. Larataguera (talk) 17:53, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. Both very good suggestions:
    1. I went back to the original sources and rewrote that section, without the incorrect/contradictory information. Thanks!
    2. I fixed the second part.
    CT55555(talk) 18:15, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Maxim

[edit]

I have considerable concerns related mostly to criterion 1c, with regards to both portions of that (thoroughness of survey, and use of high-quality sources). I noticed on an initial read that many subsections had choppy paragraphs (e.g. in Legacy), which led me to check what literature was already cited and what literature could be potentially cited. I'm reviewing from this version.

For existing sources:

  • What makes reference 4 (Reynolds, 1979) a high-quality reliable source particularly for geologic information? It is used to cite Volcanic eruptions had spouted through sediments, recrystallizing them into layers of banded gneisses – incorporating limestone, graphite, gabbro and diorite – rich in iron and other dark minerals.. The statement is outright wrong: gneiss is a high-pressure, high-temperature metamorphic rock, whereas the sentence loosely describes contact metamorphism.
  • Reference 8 (Wakefield 1988): what makes this a high-quality reliable source for the information that is being cited? The article appears to be a refutation of a Creationist geological paper. My biggest concern is with this article is that it is used to cite dates, but the article cites R.M. Easton (1986a,c) for those, which are a Ontario Geological Survey open file report and a Geological Association of Canada Special Paper respectively.
  • Reference 12: what makes world-nuclear.org a high-quality reliable source?
  • Reference 18: this appears to be a conference poster, and not a scientific journal article
  • References 19 and 40 are MSc dissertations which are generally not reliable. However, if a scientific journal article came out of such a dissertation, then I would encourage citing that. I tried searching for articles coming out of the Laidlow dissertation but I only found conference papers.
  • Related to above, reference 41 is cited as a dissertation but it seems to a link to a technical report with a broader authorship.
  • References 27 and 29 are duplicates.

I'm curious whether significantly more can be added about the geological and environmental significance of uranium in the Bancroft area. From a quick search, as examples:

Overall, I find the article is a good start, and it covers the details of the various individual mines well. That said, it could be fleshed as to its geological setting, geological significance, and environmental significance, and there is scientific literature on these subjects that is not used. I also think that the choppiness of the prose in some sections would be more readily fixed through addition of content, as opposed to copyediting. Maxim (talk) 15:15, 19 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reply part 1 of 2 (focus on critique).
Thanks for the work. I struggled to answer some of these points, as they are critique, but I'm not sure what the right path forward is. i.e. are these definitely errors, or are you open to being persuaded? I found this feedback more difficult than earlier, because not all of it leaves me certain of next steps. I've therefore pushed back on a few points, assuming you're open to being persuaded, but I hope I don't seem argumentative, I'm new to this and if something is obvious to you to be wrong, please say and I'll focus on fixes, rather than debates.
1 - What makes history columnist and writer Reynold's a reliable source Until your comments, it seems like a good source. It's a book by an established author (Reynold's also wrote In Quest of Yesterday, 1968) so has a track record of history writing. However, most of the book is about local 20th century history, rather than geology. I don't think she is a geologist. I'm not sure how to respond to you saying it is wrong. Is there a source that says what is right, then I could use that?
2 - What makes Wakefield 1988 a reliable source? Likewise it seemed reliable. I had an extensive conversation above with where another editor obliged me to get a copy of the paper and change the citation to the original publication because they considered it was more reliable. I thought our logic on wikipedia was that it's OK for reliable sources to use primary sources, the reliability of a source tends to be that they take primary sources and are assumed to check them. i.e. I thought the Journal of Geological Education is a reliable source for geology issues.
3 - The World Nuclear Association is an international organisation that represents the nuclear industry. It's mission is to to provide authoritative information. It has a 22 year history I'd not consider it a reliable source for controversial claims, or anything that was pro-nuclear industry. But for the purposes of saying where certain types of mines, rock, ores are. I've read a lot about the mining in the area and nothing cited here seems to disagree with anything else.
4 - It seems like a conference poster. You are surely correct about this. Does it mean I should change the type of citation? Or does it mean you question the reliability?
5 - On citation 19, I can probably get other sources, the claims are not controversial. I'll work on that. User:Reidgreg had an extensive conversation about the reliability of a this master's thesis during the GA review. I think we agreed that Master's thesis are generally not reliable, but I showed that four academic publications cited it, I argued that was uncommon for a Master's thesis. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971732154X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X16301588 https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/403374/ https://search.proquest.com/openview/c65c823b5613d79b21f402b3e36db7ff/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750) The author is an award winning geologist who worked for the Ministry of Natural Resources https://www.cim.org/past-award-winners/michel-proulx/
6 - So are you OK with citation 41?
7 - duplicate citations fixed.
Reply part 2 of 2, new sources, coming soon. CT55555(talk) 11:35, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I work though part 2 of my reply and improve as per your suggested sources, I note the Ontario Geological Survey report you link to cited the Proulx Master's thesis that you questioned reliability of, which I think/hope bolsters my argument that it is more credible that most Master's thesis. (Groundwater chemistry of uranium-thorium-rare earth element deposits, Bancroft area, Ontario, page 1) CT55555(talk) 15:30, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Part 2 of 2. I've aded content from the suggested sources, mainly the first two. I found the other ones mostly hyper specific and was worried I'd take the article down rabbit roles.
What is unresolved is the point about the accuracy of Reynolds. Part of the geology of this article was helpfully improved by User:GeoWriter, who appears to be a subject matter expert, so any help you want to lend here, GW, is of course very welcome. CT55555(talk) 17:30, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For Reynolds, I think she is plenty reliable for the historical aspects of the article, but as far the geology goes, assuming that the statement about gneiss is an accurate paraphrasing of the source text, then it seems to me to be a fairly basic mistake that someone with some knowledge of geology wouldn't make. The broader geological background (something that would be need to properly place the subject in context per 1b) would involve doing more work to give more geological context for these deposits. As a starting point, you have identified the Grenville Province although it's not really explicit that the Bancroft area is indeed underlain by Grenvillian rocks. To go in further detail, perhaps a starting point is Geologic transect across the Grenville orogen of Ontario and New York (Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences) which discusses the Central Metasedimentary Belt and the Bancroft Terrane,
The Journal of Geological Education is a journal of pedagogy in geology. Provided it has a formal peer review process, it would be more rigorous as to the pedagogical aspect, and less so about the specifics of Bancroft geology. Also of note is that this paper is cited mostly by papers related to the Creationism debate, which in my opinion isn't germane to this article. It would be useful to go to the original paper for example, for the radiometric dates. You would then we able to cite which technique(s) was/were used and perhaps the age uncertainties. Additionally, those technical reports would be a good springboard to flesh out the geological setting of these uranium deposits.
For the conference poster, there is a very good chance that it isn't really peer-reviewed. Typically one submits an abstract to a conference, where it is accepted or rejected, after which a poster or oral presentation is made. There isn't further "review" after the abstract stage. Often times, a conference presentation can be a stepping stone towards a formal paper in a journal, so if a related paper never really materialized, then it may or may not be suspect (e.g. the work wasn't strong enough to be published, or a graduate student graduated, found a job, and moved on with life). I wouldn't consider a poster a high-quality reliable source.
I'm OK with citation 41 as a source, but the citation itself would need to reflect it's a technical report and not a thesis.
Another comment: the geological map File:Canada geological map-WCSB.JPG highlights the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin which isn't relevant to the article. If including a geological at a comparable scale, it would be better to have one of the Grenville province, that is, focusing on Eastern Canada more than anything.
I am wondering if the title of the article does not entirely reflect its present scope. To me, it's more History of uranium mining in the Bancroft area, as the geological and environmental aspects are somewhat secondary in the current presentation, and are not as fleshed out as the history of who staked what claims in the area. Maxim (talk) 14:23, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to number these points so I can reply to them individually:
  1. Reynolds accuracy.
  2. Need for broader geographical context
  3. Is Journal of Geological Education peer reviewed?
  4. Need to go to original article for dates and more info
  5. Conference poster reliability
  6. Citation 41 formatting
  7. Better map needed
  8. Title of article
CT55555(talk) 17:49, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On 3 the journal, all Taylor and Francis journals (which this is) are peer reviewed see here and specifically here CT55555(talk) 17:52, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On 7, I've changed the map CT55555(talk) 17:53, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On 8, I agree. I thought a lot about this early on and I think I originally named (or imagined naming) the article like that. I think I then made the more holistic name, as some of the issues are current, so "historical"? But I guess yesterday was history, so maybe this is OK. CT55555(talk) 17:55, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
On 5, I have removed the conference poster as a source, I sourced the info instead from the paper you suggested above, which had a very slightly different quantity of ore from Bicroft Mine, so have updated that. CT55555(talk) 18:07, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed citation 41 (now 40) format from thesis to report. CT55555(talk) 18:17, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In summary, I think I've addressed all issues except:
A - Reliability of Reynolds, noting conversation below
B - Need for wider geological scope, as that is also relevant to conversation with GeoWriter below, and the naming of the article, and also I just need 48 hours to think, read, see what I can improve. CT55555(talk) 18:22, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Reynold's inaccuracies are now fixed, thanks to @GeoWriter
Article rename: I'm open to this, not sure what to do in the context of this being a good suggestion, but implied comfort with the status quo from others, no other agreement or disagreement from others...currently waiting to see what others say, or advice if you think I should/must make the change now? CT55555(talk) 13:50, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think it may be a good idea to wait for more reviews. With the current title and scope, I would reserve judgment on the question of whether the article meets 1b and 1c, that is, a solid "neutral" in Wikipedia jargon. :-) Maxim (talk) 20:10, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Does it follow that if we changed the title, you would think it passed the FA criteria? CT55555(talk) 22:57, 26 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Maxim a gentle ping about the question above. CT55555(talk) 14:40, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'd be still curious to see more reviews. I'm not convinced a rename is the most appropriate solution, although it is a thought that occurred to me. Maybe it's a question of article organization, but still, I think a fresh set of eyes would be better than mine at this point. Maxim (talk) 12:34, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from GeoWriter

[edit]

I agree with Maxim's criticism of the text "Volcanic eruptions had spouted through sediments, recrystallizing them into layers of banded gneisses – incorporating limestone, graphite, gabbro and diorite – rich in iron and other dark minerals.[4]: 184". This text is incorrect because volcanic eruptions would not form gneiss. How close is the wording of the Wikipedia text to the text in the cited source? Would it be possible to quote the text from the cited source in this review discussion to enable us to determine what may be wrong in the source and what may be a misunderstanding of that source? GeoWriter (talk) 20:31, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Minerals which in other part of Ontario lie hidden so deep in the earth's boson as to be beyond the reach of even twentieth century technology, in the Grenville Province of North Hastings are in places exposed and easily obtainable. The very rocks, in origin metamorphic and long ago invaded by intrusive magma, the curse of road builders and ambitious farmers, were early recognised by surveyors and geologists as holding great promise of future mineral discoveries.
Ancient glaciers, once a mile high, gouged away soil and rock repeatedly until the very heart of volcanic mountains were exposed. From earth's seething core a fantastic variety of molten minerals and non-metallics once bubbled forth under press to penetrate crevasses and crannies in the PreCambrian granite. These provided the precious sauce on Bancroft's very special nature sundae, the jewels in a treasure chest of more than 1,600 identified and collectible minerals and non-metallics to be found within a 50 miles radius of the village.
Rock formations exposed in Bancroft area vary from volcanoes which erupted on an ancient sea floor after the earth was born; through sediments recrystallized into alternating layers of banded gneisses; limestone formed in a shallow, warm, sea basin (later recrystallized into marble) whose graphite may indicate the presence of early marine life; masses of gabbro and diorite producing iron and dark minerals; the magic band of intrusive magmas swen with nepheline syentic rocks stretching from Jewellville to Gooderham, and the balance, a billion year old formation, mainly feldspar and quartz." p184 CT55555(talk) 17:40, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quotation. The source seems geologically quite reasonable (despite being the most purple prose on a geological topic I've seen in a long time). I suggest that the Wikipedia article's text should be changed from "Volcanic eruptions had spouted through sediments, recrystallizing them into layers of banded gneisses – incorporating limestone, graphite, gabbro and diorite – rich in iron and other dark minerals.[4]: 184" to "During the Grenville orogenies, sedimentary rocks were transformed by heat and pressure into banded gneiss and marble, incorporating gabbro and diorite (rich in iron and other dark minerals).[4]: 184". GeoWriter (talk) 23:24, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks. I've made this change. CT55555(talk) 13:46, 25 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@GeoWriter do you wish to comment on the article's overall suitability for featured article status? Do you have any other concerns? CT55555(talk) 14:41, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A few more comments:

  • Geology and mineralogy section

"Bancroft is one of a few locations in the world where uranium is extracted from intrusive rocks – others being the Rössing and Husab mines in Namibia, Kvanefjeld in Greenland, Palabora in South Africa, plus Radium Hill mine and occurrences in the Olary Province of Southern Australia.[8]. 

Globally, uranium is mined from intrusive rock at seven different locations with Bancroft being the only one where it is mined from intrusive rocks of the pegmatite type.[9]: 11". 

I suggest that these two paragraphs should be merged and the repetitive parts should be removed.

  • Gems and other resources section

I suggest that the phrase "and the best known samples of molybdenite" should be removed. It adds nothing and makes little or no sense. The preceding phrase ""fine" samples of molybdenite" is sufficient.

  • Bicroft Mine section

"In 1952 G. W. Burns, a well-studied amateur prospector from Peterborough, found uranium deposits ...". Perhaps this is a local (Canadian?) phrasing of English but in my region of the English-speaking world we'd usually avoid "well-studied" as an adjective for a person - it tends to be restricted to subjects, objects and people that have been well-studied by people e.g. "gold is a well-studied mineral" or "the works of Shakespeare have been well-studied by scholars", it's not usually a description of a person's own knowledge level. I suggest "well-studied" should be removed. It seems irrelevant anyway because whatever the geological knowledge of Burns may have been, he still discovered the ore deposits (which is the main point).

"fluorspar, an indicator of radioactive geology ...". If you want to add a source reference for the general geological information that fluorspar (i.e. fluorite") is such an indicator, a possible source reference would be Ying et al. (2018) which states "Uranium mineralization is commonly accompanied by enrichment of fluorite and other F-bearing minerals". Of course, this does not specifically support the thinking of Burns himself during his discovery but it does support the general geological point.

  • Dyno Mine section

The duplicate wikilink for "allanite" should be removed. It is already linked in the preceding Faraday Mine/Madawaska Mine section.

GeoWriter (talk) 21:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this. I've done all those edits, except the extra reference for the "fluorspar, an indicator of radioactive geology..." as I considered that fact to be already cited as per the existing citation (see paragraph 2 page 180). Would you agree with that? CT55555(talk) 21:27, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the existing citation does seem to cover the fluorspar/radioactivity link.
""fine" samples of molybdenite" now needs a preceding "and" because it is now the last item in a list.
A few other things I have noticed:
For consistency of format with other citations in this article, by using unabbreviated page numbers, I suggest that the citations [10]: 177–78  and [10]: 176–77  should be changed to [10]: 177–178 and [10]: 176–177 respectively.
*Health legacy for miners section
"The BMJ (journal of the British Medical Association) reported an increase of lung cancer risk ...". The BMJ merely published the work of the authors. I suggest this text should be changed to: "In an article published in the BMJ (journal of the British Medical Association) in 2016, the authors of the study reported an increase of lung cancer risk ...".
"The study is to be updated in 2023.". This is too definite considering that the cited source (published in 2021) reports "The study, which is now underway and set to end in 2023 ...". It might have ended in 2021 or 2022, or it might not end until 2024, and it might be "updated" by publication in 2024 or 2025 etc. I suggest this should be rephrased to be less certain of timing, perhaps with inclusion of a word such as "due", "expected", "scheduled", or "planned".
GeoWriter (talk) 16:32, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again. All very agreeable improvements, which I have now completed. CT55555(talk) 17:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

question to coordinator

[edit]

Gog the Mild My summary of this so far is that Ling wanted page numbers added to citation and I've done that, but their health leaves it unconfirmed if any further changes are needed. The other unresolved issue that is that Maxim wanted more content on geology, or a title change to "History of..." which I was unsure about, I think we both wanted wider input on that issue, which hasn't arisen. Please note that I did expand the geology somewhat, but not a lot.

So I'm wondering where you see this review process? Is this a stalemate situation (does one neutral review veto) or do you see consensus to promote? I'm wondering if there is anything I ought to do? CT55555(talk) 12:55, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Worry not CT55555. This is a fairly standard FAC situation. I saw Maxim's comments when they first made them, and have just had a look at GeoWriter's input. I see no need for coordinator input at this stage. One of us will come back to to it if it is still outstanding as and when we are looking to close this nom. It seems eminently resolvable to me. (And possibly already resolved.) I am more concerned at the lack of reviews four weeks in, which is liable to see the nom timed out. So I have added it to the list of source reviews wanted and to urgents. If you feel like placing a polite neutrally phrased request on the talk pages of a few of the more frequent FAC reviewers or on the talk pages of relevant Wikiprojects, or of editors you know are interested in the topic of the nomination, or who have contributed at PR, or assessed at GAN, or edited the article, that may also help. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:17, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@User:Reidgreg You kindly put a lot of effort at the GA review process, especially on sourcing. So that leaves me both thinking you are well placed to comment further, and also leaves me reluctant to ask...but as there is a lack of source reviews here... Likewise User:Julius177 I know you took an interest in my articles relating to mining in Ontario, but don't know if you participate in source reviews, but giving you a ping in case you wanted to review? CT55555(talk) 13:23, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah Reidgreg, it must be about time that you showed us all at FAC what a review should look like. (No sarcasm whatsoever intended.) Gog the Mild (talk) 14:08, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to start on this later today; I'm not a subject-specific editor, though, and my source checks may be limited to the Wikipedia Library. – Reidgreg (talk) 15:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Reidgreg

[edit]

As I performed the GAN review, I'm not sure I should have too strong a voice here.

Prose

  • located two kilometres east of Wilberforce on lot four, concession 21 of Cardiff township. Is this too much detail? Suggest removing the underlined portion. Also, the two kilometres should be given in miles in parenthesis.
Done CT55555(talk) 11:58, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Images and table

  • I usually feel that images should illustrate the text, and should be placed close to the text that they're illustrating. The geological map might best be placed in the geology section along the bullets for Cheddar, Cardiff, Faraday formations, although that would get it a bit image-heavy with the mineral pictures included.
  • The geological map should ideally be redone, perhaps as an SVG with appropriate colour which would be clear at a smaller size and better serve an online encyclopedia. If you don't feel you have the competency to do this yourself, you can make a request at Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Map workshop.
  • The 'location of main mines' map could likewise be improved. At the least, I feel the width should be halved and the caption should specify what is at each of points 1 through 5.
  • The image of betafite lacks |alt= text.
  • The table 'Major uranium mines int he Bancroft area' doesn't seem to have any order to it. I would suggest ordering them by the year they first opened, alphabetically by the name the mine first operated under, or perhaps by total tonnage.
Done with following notes:
  1. I have requested support at the Graphics Lab for the map/image improvement.
  2. I reduced the size of the map to just slightly larger than half. I tried various versions and this one seemed optimal. If you think that exactly 50% of the original is important, I will do that, I but assume that reducing it by about half is close enough to your request to be satisfactory. CT55555(talk) 12:20, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Reidgreg With thanks to User:Isochrone the map is now improved. CT55555(talk) 12:53, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sources

I'm looking mainly at sources not covered in the GAN review. Please note that named references and page numbers (when available) are usually included at FAC, for ease of discussion and verification. I'm not sure if they are required, but you may get more volunteers willing to review your work if you make it easier for them to do so.

Thanks, I've added the url. The need for page numbers was highlighted above and I added them for every source where they were applicable (i.e. for books, but not for webpages). Were you reviewing an earlier version of this, or am I missing something or have I made an error with the page numbers somwhere? CT55555(talk) 12:24, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Trace element mobility in mine waters from granitic pegmatite U–Th–REE deposits, Bancroft area, Ontario. Used for The Grenville Province in Eastern Canada has small quantities of uranium-thorium-rare earth element in granitic pegmatite. The occurrence of the rare minerals appear in the greatest abundance around Bancroft area I feel that this paraphrase might be a little strong for the source: "Small, low-grade, granitic pegmatite hosted U–Th–REE deposits are found throughout the Grenville geological province of eastern Canada. They are particularly numerous in the Bancroft area of Ontario". Basically, Bancroft has numerous low-grade deposits. To say it has the greatest abundance would require a complete survey of the entire Grenville Province.
Fair. Have fixed CT55555(talk) 12:33, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Groundwater chemistry of uranium-thorium-rare earth element deposits, Bancroft area, Ontario. Good, reliable source, focus on subject. Used for Rural Canadians predominantly rely on ground water for drinking water supply. Mining activity expanded fissures and widened the area of groundwater contamination. Public health concerns around groundwater contamination focus on uranium and thorium, plus the presence of decay products of both. The second and third sentences appear to be from this part of the source (page 2): "Mining activities, however, can significantly enhance geochemical reactions and the mobilization of contaminants. This is because mine openings, excavation-related fracturing, and dispersal of fine-grained ore particles within the workings increase the surface area of reaction between groundwater and contaminant-bearing minerals. Discharge of this impacted groundwater from flooded mine workings may then affect surface water quality directly. The principal contaminants of concern associated with the granitic pegmatite-hosted U-Th-REE deposits of the Bancroft district are uranium (U), Thorium (Th), and their radioactive decay products." I think that part is okay. Didn't find anything for the first sentence. For The 2016 paper Trace element mobility in mine waters from granitic pegmatite U–Th–REE deposits, Bancroft area, Ontario noted that 70% of ground water samples taken from diamond drilling holes, mine shafts and adits had uranium concentrates above national drinking water safety standards of 0.02 milligrams per litre. I don't really like inline attribution if it isn't a subjective opinion; readers can check the reference for the title and authors. It might serve the reader better to give context of the paper, like "A 2016 Geological Survey of Canada study noted" or "A 2015 GCS study noted". This is also more concise. The measurement should normally be given parenthetically in imperial/US units {{convert|0.02|mg/l}} produces 0.02 milligrams per litre (1.2×10−8 oz/cu in), though this does not seem particularly useful.
  1. The first sentence (about ground water and rural Canadians) is also from page 2. Quoting the source:"...since groundwater is the sole source of potale supply for most rural inhabitants".CT55555(talk) 12:42, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Have fixed all other parts of this comment. CT55555(talk) 12:46, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Done CT55555(talk) 12:57, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Goad, Granitic Pegamtites of the Bancroft Area, Southeastern Ontario. I see page 321 with 111,128 pounds of U3O8, 1955-59, but it is not obvious to me that this is for Greyhawk Mine.
  1. I just realised I missed adding the page number, which helps me understand your comment above. It is clear if you print pages 320 and 321, or view them side by size, as it is a table that spans two pages and line 93 is for Greyhawk. CT55555(talk) 13:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1980 thesis Mohammad Bin Daud A Study of Uranium in Ground Water Around Greyhawk Mine, Bancroft, Ontario. I don't understand what you've done here. The use to the thesis has been expanded to three places, replacing higher quality sources that were present at the GA review, and doesn't seem to actually verify the information.
I'm not sure how we got there either. Assuming I made an error. I have revered back to the better source. CT55555(talk) 13:58, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to stop here and give you a chance to check the references and clean them up. – Reidgreg (talk) 22:12, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks you @Reidgreg, again you have put a lot of effort into this and I appreciate it. I've made all the improvements suggested (noting the that the geological map will need input from others) and the process of making these improvements caught a few other small necessary tweaks that I've done.
Page numbers existed in almost all citations, but there were a few still missing and I've fixed that now.
I hope you find all these improvements satisfactory? CT55555(talk) 15:05, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Reidgreg: just checking you saw this? CT55555(talk) 11:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I won't be able to get back to this until late next week, at the earliest. Reidgreg (talk) 13:00, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

seeking a source review

[edit]

As per a conversation on my talk page, @Gog the Mild: suggested that this review would benefit from one more source review. This table informed me that @Mike Christie, Nikkimaria, and Hog Farm: did the most in December 2022. So if any of you might be interested to support with that, I'd be grateful. In June 2023, @Jo-Jo Emuerus: also did many last month, so hope you also don't mind the ping and request. CT55555(talk) 11:42, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The user name was slightly misspelt, so re-pinging User:Jo-Jo Eumerus. Jo-Jo, this one looks right up your street. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:02, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, but I am afraid that last month's reviews were due to some free time in my life that is unlikely to reoccur anytime soon. But I can already say that I wonder why the citations in the lead are needed. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed the lead based on MOS:LEADCITE leaving one citation for the health claim in the lead. CT55555(talk) 17:22, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing is the "Mineral legacy" section - single sentence paragraphs are bad and I think there is a lack of WP:Due weight here - why does the health and environmental impact get that much more attention than the actual mining output? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:39, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The mining output is well documented in the Uranium Mining section, but I don't think that is a legacy. Uranium was created, used and is now gone. The tailings remain and are more legacy.
The amount of writing for the mineral legacy, environmental and health legacies, I think, matches the volume of sources I found on each. I did find enough to create Bancroft Rockhound Gemboree. I could therefore expand that section somewhat, but I thought the existence of that article discounted the need to do so.
I write a lot about mines (approx 25 articles), and in general I consider it normal for the legacy, some decades later, to be mostly environmental and with regards to uranium mines (I've stared 5 articles and done most of the content on the 12 around Elliot Lake) the health legacy seems to be the other main legacy that reliable sources write about. I think due weight has been applied. CT55555(talk) 20:52, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I have merged the mineral legacy and environmental legacy sections and made them top level sections. I've made the health legacy section a top level section.
Therefore cut down the sections and also joined the short sentences. CT55555(talk) 20:56, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your comments also reminded me of comments that @Reidgreg made at GA review, specifically that there were too many sections. I've since reduced the sections in the article, merging shorter ones. CT55555(talk) 21:03, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Source review - HF
[edit]

I'll take this on, but it will take a few days. Hog Farm Talk 16:43, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Reynolds, Nila (1979). Bancroft. A Bonanza of Memories. The Bancroft Centennial Committee. pp. 184–193, 223. OCLC 8091686. Archived from the original on 9 July 2023. Retrieved 9 July 2023." - old locally published local history type works often aren't of the greatest quality - what makes this high-quality RS?
  • " Proulx, Michèle (1997). "The Uranium Mining industry of the Bancroft Area: an Environmental History and Heritage Assessment" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 5 January 2022. Retrieved 27 November 2021." - master's thesis. See WP:SCHOLARSHIP, master's theses only meet the FA sourcing standards in very significant situations, and even PhD theses don't always pass the muster
  • somewhat misleading statement here - the table presents ore millage at the "Faraday Mine (1954–1964) Madawaska Mine (1975–1982)" and then gives a total millage figure, implied to be for that entire time frame. Yet, if you look at the source, which is from 1981, you only get millage figures through 1979, not 1982. And also, p. 60 of this source says the mine was reopened in mid-1976, not 1975
  • Laidlow is another master's thesis, see the concern about with Proulx
  • And see also Mohammed 1980
  • " Voisin, Stella (28 July 2007). "Report on The Caring for Kids in Cardiff Research Project" (PDF). Fay And Associates." - unsure about the high-quality RS nature of this source. From what I can tell, this is essentially the research project of a small local nonprofit.

I'll do some spot-checks once these can all get sorted out, but I don't feel comfortable proclaiming that a number of the sources here would meet the FA standards. As a note, I'm not the most familiar with WP:MEDRS and intend to call in another opinion for the medical content sourcing at the end. 17:04, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the analysis and question.
"Quoting User:Maxim above "For Reynolds, I think she is plenty reliable for the historical aspects of the article..." (there was some discussion about her reliability for Geological aspects, but we cleared that up, I think it stemmed from me paraphrasing her badly.
  • On Proulx, his reliability has been discussed a few times (at GA review and here). Some notes about that: Ontario Geological Survey cite Proulx on page 1 of Groundwater chemistry of uranium-thorium-rare earth element deposits, Bancroft area, Ontario. So if Canada's national authority on Geology consider him a reliable source, I find that very persuasive. Further to that, Google Scholar shows four examples where papers also cite Proulx (admittedly 2 are themselves also Master's theses), I consider this very uncommon for a Master's thesis. (Sources: Part 1: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&q=The+Uranium+Mining+Industry+of+the+Bancroft+Area
Part 2: And the four things that cite it are: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971732154X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265931X16301588 https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/403374/ https://search.proquest.com/openview/c65c823b5613d79b21f402b3e36db7ff/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750). I'm basically copy and pasting what I said to @Reidgreg: over here at the GA review. To quote his answer: "The last two of those are theses as well, but I think you've made your case. I appreciate your changing some of them to higher quality sources and I am satisfied to approve the use for those remaining". What I learned since then about the author Michel Proulx is that he is somewhat of an expert in the topic: "He was a geologist and project geologist for the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources" quoting from 2016 when he won the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum Best Geology Paper award.
In summary, I believe Proulx to be an expert geologist, sufficiently influential to be a reliable source for governments agencies and academics alike. CT55555(talk) 17:59, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have corrected Madawaska Mine reopening date to 1976, thanks for catching that error.
  • Great catch on the ore milled error regarding Madawaska. I've fixed that, changing sources to Proulx and therefore covering all years. This also enabled the improvement of being able to separate the ore milled into two time periods.
  • Regarding Laidlow. Indeed it's a master's thesis. It supports two claims. 1 that the Madawaska site on a wetlands. Note also this imperfect source supporting that: The Faraday mines region is a rolling landscape—filled with a myriad of small lakes and extensive wetlands but I couldn't find more. So I could perhaps just delete the wetland sentence from the article if you think this is not sufficiently supported?
Laidlaw is also cited for what tailings remain on Bicroft Mine. That is also suported here https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2016/rncan-nrcan/M41-11-24-2014-eng.pdf although User:Maxim did not consider this source reliable as they described it as a conference poster, rather than an academic source. To avoid disagreement, I removed the source, but I will note that it is published by the relevant Canadian federal government agency and seems credible to me. The same data is included (same author) here https://www.imwa.info/docs/imwa_2015/IMWA2015_Laidlow_232.pdf. Note comments above from Ling "The original Master's degree thesis by Allison Marie Laidlow is available online too." I wonder if any of this convinces you?
  • Regarding Mohamad (1980). I don't really have much justification/defence of this Master's thesis source. I was encouraged above to expand the environmental impact section and this was the best I could get. If you think this needs to be deleted, I will do that.
  • Regarding Fay & Associates. Likewise, I can't rebut your point. It is is indeed a publication published by a small consulting firm written by a educator I tried to find a better source, but I could not. I felt like I had written robustly about some of the negative aspects of the mine and I was keen to make sure the positive was included so was keen to include this. If you think we must delete the content sourced to this, I will do that.
  • Regarding WP:MEDRS this was a particular point of discussion between User:Reidgreg here at the GA review. That review felt very robust in terms of WP:MEDRS compliance and note above Reidgreg has looked again (pending conclusions) at this FA review. CT55555(talk) 18:57, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm still unconvinced on Reynolds - while she does seem to be an established local historian, the credentials provided are only for hyperlocal groups and thus aren't a great indicator that she rises from the lower bar of "reliable enough to be OK for GA" to stricter standard of "high quality reliable of FA standard". Proulx I will look into more, although it's worth noting that one of the four citations noted was to Laidlow, which should frankly be discounted as it is of lower quality. Am not convinced on Laidlow meeting the WP:SCHOLARSHIP bar and I'm not seeing that the quote from Ling is actually in support of reliability and appears to be more focused on providing the source in an accessible and properly formatted way. You could probably convince me to accept most of these for GA, but Laidlow, Mohammed, and Voisin/Fay are all below the FA standard line, and Reynolds is probably below the cut line. I haven't made up my mind about Proulx yet, but I am open to another opinion from someone like Nikkimaria or Ealdgyth on the others. Hog Farm Talk 21:47, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      I' hope I'm not repeating/bludgeoning, but I wrote a lot above, so in summary:
      1. I don't refute your points on Laidlow, Mohamad and Voisin/Fay. And none of these sources are important, I can remove them and remove a tiny bit of content, the impact is low. All easy fixes.
      2. I hope I can persuade you on Proulx. I think that Ontario Geological Survey using the same source in their publication, and him being somewhat of an expert on the topic is my most compelling counter-point.
      3. Reynolds, indeed has worked on local history issues. But is a multiple published book author on the topic of social/history issues and I'm surprised that a historian tending to focus very locally is perceived as a negative point on her reliability. I'm new to this, but if I had to analyse, I would argue that someone tending to focus on one specific geographic area would have made them more likely to be correct about something than less. I'm new to this process, so am still learning, but would the University of Calgary keeping the book in their collection add anything to boost its importance? (link)
      CT55555(talk) 01:20, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • As to "a historian tending to focus very locally is perceived as a negative point on her reliability", I'm not debating that whatever Reynolds writes in quite likely to be accurate, but the FA standard of high-quality reliable sources requires a bit more of a bar than is probably true. There unfortunately often isn't the sort of attention given to narrow local works to demonstrate that these works actually meet the standard - we can't just broadly accept these works as high-quality RS due to the large amounts of poor quality local history works (see, for instance, basically anything written as local history on topics like Jesse James or Belle Starr). I'll ask around for a third opinion on Reynolds and Proulx. Hog Farm Talk 00:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        I've spent more time looking into Nila Reynolds. I've collated what I've found here: Draft:Nila Reynolds. The first citation is a podcast, an interview with a history museum director almost entirely about Reynolds and her unique approach to local history - namely the high number of interviews she engaged in before publishing her most famous book, In Quest of Yesterday. The book cited in this article is also discussed positively in the context of its usefulness for history enthusiasts.
        In my searches, I found her cited in a PhD thesis and in an academic paper. I hope this is helpful. CT55555(talk) 12:53, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hog Farm asked me to weigh in here. On balance, reviewing the conversation above and the use of these sources in the article, I would largely accept Proulx with the exception of the final citation to it ("The mine succeeded due to a combination of economic factors, including ... a good road and rail network") - the evidence provided is that he could be considered an expert in geology, but this claim is beyond that scope. As to Reynolds, I share HF's view: a decent source but not to the high-quality bar. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:50, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for weighing in. I wasn't sure what to do, I'm disappointed that two well respected editors both consider Nila Reynolds not to be a good enough source. I was waiting to see if anyone disagreed with this, but noting the page views here, my optimism is low. I mentioned this predicament on my talk page; it is predicament because the article relies on Reynolds a lot and I'd rather fail FA and keep that content in, than delete lots of useful history just to get this through FA. Discussing this dilemma with User:Lingzhi.Renascence here here made me realise that I maybe ought to try and rebut this analysis, so humbly, here goes:
    Nila Reynolds is an established historian. I have searched the Wikipedia Library, ProQuest and every possible avenue I can pursue to learn about her to form this argument. Every mention I have found on her is positive.
    The article about her details her writing training, she learned under Sylvia Fraser, Scott Young and Austin Chesterfield Clarke at the Haliburton School of Fine Arts. (cited in article about her)
    Her work is noted by Barry Penhale who described Reynold's book In Quest of Yesterday as "critically acclaimed." (cited in article about her).
    Most impressively was this podcast, which is an interview with a history museum director, and is mostly glowing praise for Reynolds and her research techniques. https://www.stitcher.com/show/time-warp/episode/local-history-writer-nila-reynolds-plus-brief-history-of-slavery-in-canada-pt-2-201964754.
    The book cited in this question is considered important enough to be held in the University of Calgary library (link)
    She is an established, published, praised, notable historian. I don't think it is fair or logical to discredit her for writing only about local history, and I think we need to be mindful of the time that these books were written and the disadvantages that women historians faced in those times.
    Nobody has put forward any source that discredits her. I contend that she should not just be treated as equal to any history writer, but superior to most due to her specialisation and the absence of any negative critique. CT55555(talk) 01:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    P.S. I just reviewed WP:USEBYOTHERS which is part of our policy for deciding on the reliable sources. Reynolds is used by others a lot. Don't take my word for it, just search for her name in Google Books and you'll see work by John Robert Colombo citing her, you'll see the book mentioned in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the Encyclopedia of Ontario, and Ontario History CT55555(talk) 02:16, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • @CT55555: and @FAC coordinators: - I think I'm going to have to register an oppose here. Reynolds is used 13 times, and we still have multiple citations to Laidlow and Fay/Voison, as well as stray matters such as the single use of Proulx Nikkimaria challenged above, and then stuff like Mohamad that are used only briefly, but still need replaced. Given the extent of the article's reliance on particularly Reynolds, I suspect that significant rewriting/replacing of sources will be need to a degree that this is probably better worked on outside of FAC, rather than have a significantly changing article up on a single FAC. Hog Farm Talk 01:15, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    It will take me just a few minutes to remove Laidlow, Fay/Voison, Mohamad and the Proulx citations, I was waiting to see if anyone disagreed.
    I think the reliance on Reynolds is the only point that I am resisting. We almost had an edit conflict the timing of our comments were so close. Hoping I may have persuaded you above to reconsider Reynolds as a source. Indeed the article is reliant on her and I'd rather fail FA than cut so much useful content from the article. The other stuff is trivial and I'll be happy to edit it out to get this over the line. I'm waiting to see if I can persuade people on Reynolds before taking that step. CT55555(talk) 01:27, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I've been keeping one eye on this nom for a while and I'd like to see any further work take place outside the FAC process -- even before this I felt it was looking more like a peer review than a FAC, i.e. much discussion but little support for promotion, and now we're more than six weeks into the nom. Let's pls address outstanding stuff on the article talk page and, if resolved, another run at FAC (after the usual 2-week hiatus) might be in order. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Buidhe via FACBot (talk) 19 July 2023 [7].

All the Light We Cannot See

[edit]
Nominator(s): Lazman321 (talk) 05:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All the Light We Cannot See is a 2014 novel written by Anthony Doerr. It follows two European characters and their experiences during World War II: Marie-Laure, a blind French girl with a passion for marine biology who escapes to Saint-Malo after Germany invades France, and Werner, a bright German boy with a passion for science who is forced to enlist in a military school to avoid dying in the mines. Written as a celebration of the little miracles in life, All the Light We Cannot See was released to glowing praise; it was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A Netflix adaptation is going to be released on November 2, 2023.

This is my first nomination for a novel article for WP:FA; the two previous FAs were both for video games, so this may be a new experience fore me. I have been working on this article off and on since March 2022, leading to a successful WP:GA nomination on January 2023 and a peer review that ended on June 2023. I plan on having a successful candidacy for this article before nominating as WP:TFA for either the release of the adaptation (November 2, 2023) or the novel's tenth anniversary (May 6, 2024). Lazman321 (talk) 05:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First-time nomination

[edit]
Image review—pass (t · c) buidhe 05:26, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from UndercoverClassicist

[edit]

Most of my observations from the recent peer review stand, though I can see that some have been acted on. The main concerns I have at the moment are:

  • NPOV: The article veers towards being advertising or promotional: it narrates Doerr's story of his ideas and motivations in great detail and largely reproduces his own account from interviews and press releases. I would also say that there is WP:UNDUEWEIGHT given to positive characterisations of the book: while it is undoubtedly popular and much loved, critical reception of its literary qualities has been far more mixed than this article would suggest.
  • There remain quite a few places where the prose needs to be clarified or polished. I've pointed out a few of these on the peer review, and I'm happy to pick out further examples as this process progresses.
  • Sourcing: the article seems to be entirely based on peri-publication reviews and other news stories; I would like to see some more academic treatments to push up the HQ part of WP:HQRS, if those exist. From the bibliography it looks as though nobody's written anything about this novel (as distinct from the forthcoming film) in almost ten years.
  • The thematic discussion in the Analysis section seems to have identified topics based on the writer's own ideas, rather than following any secondary source's idea of what the main themes of the novel might be. Particularly in this section, there are a lot of heavily value-laden sentences expressed as fact: the article needs to walk a more careful line between reporting what has been said about the work and asserting what is factually true about it. The article on Casino Royale does this quite well, leading its Themes section with what particular critics have identified as the novel's main themes.
  • In the Background section, it would be good to contextualise the work in relation to Doerr's earlier writing: the Goh article mentioned below by Buidhe sees some important threads from his short stories continued in All the Light.

UndercoverClassicist (talk) 15:56, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for the review. I'm attempting to address your points, but there I some I disagree with or would like clarification. Respective to each point:
  • Perhaps there are specific sentences that seem promotional that you could highlight. The example you give for the article being promotional confuses me. Of course it reproduces Doerr's account of writing the novel, that's what the section is about. What would be the alternative? As for the reception section, I did address the concern somewhat by adding a few reviews that felt the novel was overwritten, but I don't think the article misrepresents the prevailing critical consensus. A vast majority of reviews are positive if not laudatory and some articles written about the novel do directly say that it received "critical acclaim", and aside from the overwritten example, there aren't really any criticisms that multiple critics share and thus be worth putting in.
  • The alternative to (simply, exclusively, only) presenting Doerr's account is to provide a broader context. The section isn't "everything about Doerr's narrative of how the book came to be": there's a lot more than that to a book's background, and giving so much detail to what is essentially an advertising story (that is, a story Doerr tells when promoting the book) rubs up against WP:DUEWEIGHT and WP:NPOV. As I mentioned above, I think it would be useful to compare the way that section is written here with the corresponding area of other literary FAs (I mentioned Casino Royale further up: the Development section there might be a start). UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Go ahead and point out further examples; I'd be happy to improve the article's prose.
  • If you don't mind, I'd like to hold off on doing a very detailed review until there are a few more reviews: it's quite a big job for both of us, and it would be better done when there's a clearer sense of the direction of travel here. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have added a few more scholarly articles, but I will say there isn't a lot of scholarly discussion about the novel, and some of the scholarly articles I have found are utterly useless (if you can see what parts of the Goh and Damian articles I can discuss, I'd be happy to add them.) That being said, the Mengqi, despite a few translation issues about certain names, is really useful and I will probably add more information from the article as the candidacy progresses, so thanks Buidhe.
  • I don't want to turn the analysis section into a quote farm and I feel like much of the unattributed text is objective, at least as objective as literary analysis can be. However, I have tried to address this as best I can by
  • One way around this is to be clear on what's been said: "The descriptions of points of interest, such as battlefields and beaches, are detailed" is a debatable (and inherently unverifiable: who decides what counts as "detailed"?) statement, but "several critics highlighted the detailed descriptions of points of interest..." solves that problem. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Though I did add year disambiguators in response, this one is the one I feel like addressing the least. If by contextualization you mean putting down at the beginning of the background section, "Before publishing All the Light..., Doerr published a novel, two short story collections, and a memoir.", I have to ask why? This article is about All the Light We Cannot See, meaning that Doerr's earlier works should only really be mentioned if they are relevant, which the article already does. (e.g. "During a trip to France in 2005, Doerr visited Saint-Malo to promote his debut novel After Grace."; provides motivation of the visit that influenced the setting of All the Light We Cannot See)
  • I think the relevance is establishing the context, within the author's oeuvre, from which the work arises. Did it just pop out of his head, or does it represent a continuation, development or repudiation of what he wrote before? In the interests of comprehensiveness, it would be good to set out (if only briefly) what Doerr's literary story looks like at the beginning of this article's narrative. UndercoverClassicist (talk) 11:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Lazman321 (talk) 22:27, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You know what, I'm withdrawing the candidacy. I underestimated how busy I would be over the summer, so I don't see myself finishing this candidacy at the present moment, especially considering what UndercoverClassicist is asking me to do about the background section, which seems esoteric to be honest. I will propose the article again once I have more time on my hands. Lazman321 (talk) 17:01, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@FAC coordinators: FYI on the withdrawal. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:05, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To piggyback on this comment, possible sources not cited include:

I wouldn't consider the article comprehensive without examining scholarly sources. Most likely all can be accessed with TWL or WP:RX. (t · c) buidhe 00:04, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Buidhe via FACBot (talk) 17 July 2023 [8].

Phobos (moon)

[edit]
Nominator(s): Urhixidur (talk) 23:55, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Mars's major moon, something worth exposing more people to. Urhixidur (talk) 23:55, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, suggesting speedy closure. Article is virtually unchanged from any previous revision: unreferenced content, same prose, same breadth, same sources. Wretchskull (talk) 10:01, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 17 July 2023 [9].

Nabataean Aramaic

[edit]
Nominator(s): Benji man (talk) 08:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the Aramaic language used by the Nabataeans. It's a topic I've been researching professionally for the past several years, but I have made sure not to cite my own research or include any original research. At the moment, this article stands as probably the most elaborate Wikipedia article on any Aramaic language. I hope that achieving FA status will give a boost to related topics as well. Finally, this is my first FA nomination, so I apologize in advance for any instances where I don't follow the procedure correctly. Benji man (talk) 08:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, Syriac language is longer, at least :) Benji man (talk) 08:58, 13 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First-time nomination

[edit]

Image review

[edit]
  • Suggest adding alt text
  • >Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
  • File:Cooke's_Text-book_of_North-Semitic_Inscriptions,_Nabataean_and_Palmyrene_01.jpg: what is the author's date of death?
1939. Benji man (talk) 19:22, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Buidhe—comments

Needs a review for WP:WTW. For example,

  • avoid "notes" as in "Cantineau notes that it cannot be established whether this also holds for Nabataean" or "Michael O'Connor... noted that loanwords are largely restricted to technical terms" (also try to stick to one tense)
  • it's not verifiable what he thinks/ knows so "Cantineau is unsure" and "the examples known to Cantineau" should be rephrased

(t · c) buidhe 03:13, 14 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, I hope to go through the article for other WTW issues soon! Benji man (talk) 08:06, 15 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for addressing my comments, but it's not considered good form to strike someone else's comment. I wish you good luck with this FAC. (t · c) buidhe 01:11, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I didn't know that. Will unstrike them. Benji man (talk) 12:26, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Airship

[edit]

An excellent example of the first-time FA nomination—bags of potential, but a fair few issues of varying magnitude, if you don't mind me saying. Let's start with the stuff that caught my eye first (bearing in mind that I'm not in any way a language specialist). Like always, these are suggestions: feel free to decline with justification

  • I feel like the lead could be better organised. The article is two thousand six hundred words, not including tables/notes/captions; perhaps an introductory short paragraph, a paragraph on history, and one on phonology/morphology/syntax?
  • Minor point: shouldn't it be "was" in the first sentence?
  • Always try to minimise short, stubby sentences or paragraphs, of which there are rather many.
  • Is it possible to remove the lists and put the whole syntax section in prose? In any case, I can't see any need for subsections in that section—the latter two especially are not nearly long enough to deserve a separate heading. I do find that language articles are always rather MOS:OVERSECTION-heavy.
  • It's also seemingly dependent on one inline citation, which I think is further justification for the above suggestion.
  • See MOS:SA for guidance on the See Also section. Specifically, take a note of MOS:NOTSEEALSO: "As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body."
  • If you use CS1 templates for the Sources section, you should probably use them for the Further Reading section too.
  • Some images need citations, including the coins, the latter part of the Tayma inscription, and the tracing, as they contain higher analysis.
  • I am extremely confused about the hatnote at the bottom of the sample texts section.

Let's start with that and see how we get on. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:05, 18 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot! Will try to address these soon! Benji man (talk) 13:00, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Benji man, how are you doing with responses to these? I ask because the time out clock has just started ticking. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:48, 4 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi @Gog the Mild, thanks! I think I've covered most of them, just haven't been able to go through the whole article for WTW issues as I was hoping to. Would you like to take a look at the article? Benji man (talk) 09:10, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Benji man. If you have addressed all of AirshipJungleman29's comments, it is a good idea to ping them to let them know. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:55, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gog the Mild

[edit]

Recusing to review.

  • Having just read (only) the lead, I get a niggling feeling that this may no longer be a living written language. But then again it starts "Nabataean Aramaic is the Aramaic variety used ...", not was and has no dates for when it flourished. So I assume that it is still in regular use.
  • Citation 36: I would suggest putting the note in a note, rather than a cite.
  • In sources, all books should have either an ISBN or an OCLC.
  • I assume that you have not had a FAC mentor while working on this, that it has not been through PR and that it has not been to GoCER?

I am a little doubtful as to whether this is currently FAC ready, but ping me once you have wrapped up Airship's comments, or are about to, and I'll go throuhg a couple of sections in detail and we'll see where we are. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:50, 24 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Just in response to your first point, MOS:WAS gives me the impression that "is" is correct for a dead language with extant records. It's also what's used in e.g. Akkadian language. Is this wrong? Benji man (talk) 13:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your tweak resolves this one. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:59, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • "With the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire (330s BC), the Aramaic language increasingly lost importance as the lingua franca of the Near East." This seems to start in the middle and begs for a preceding sentence along the lines of 'With the rise of the Achaemenid Empire across the Middle East and West Asia Aramaic became the lingua franca of the western part of the polyglot state during xxx to yyy BC'.
  • Is "Imperial Aramaic" the same as "Achaemenid Official Aramaic"?
  • "Of the few innovations compared to Imperial Aramaic". Does that mean 'Of the few innovations of Nabataean Armaic compared to Imperial Aramaic'?
  • "Of the few innovations compared to Imperial Aramaic, the use of the object marker yt is a Western Aramaic feature, although the older form ʔyt already occurs in Old Aramaic. But since Nabataean Aramaic does not participate in the innovations typical of Eastern Aramaic, it is commonly assigned to Western Aramaic.' Would 'Of the few innovations compared to Imperial Aramaic, the use of the object marker yt is a Western Aramaic feature. As the older form ʔyt already occurs in Old Aramaic and Nabataean Aramaic does not participate in the innovations typical of Eastern Aramaic, it is commonly assigned to Western Aramaic.' make this flow a little better?
  • "in the years 96 or 95 BC." Suggest deleting "the years".
  • "This inscription is unique not only because of its age". What is unique about its age?
  • "According to Jean Cantineau". Could this person be briefly introduced. And Michael O'Connor. And Aaron Butts. And anyone else.
  • "The second school of thought, led by Theodor Nöldeke, traces Arabic script to Nabataean. This thesis was confirmed by John Healey in his work on the Syriac and the Arabic alphabet." Is it known when this second school originated/came to prominance, and when Healey confirmed the thesis?
  • The image in "Script" and the one in "Phonology" combine to create a major MOS:SANDWICH and a large amount of white space on several devices and at several settings.
  • "It does not inflect." Link inflect.

And that is all I have. A nice article. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

[edit]

At over a month into this nom we are a long way from consensus to promote, and the required spotcheck of sources will add more time, so I'm going to archive the nom. Suggest working with the reviewers on the article talk to resolve outstanding comments during the usual two-week hiatus following archival, and then consider bringing back to FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:45, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Buidhe via FACBot (talk) 17 July 2023 [10].

Deimos (moon)

[edit]
Nominator(s): Urhixidur (talk) 23:55, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Mars's minor moon, something worth exposing more people to. Urhixidur (talk) 23:55, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment this article would have no chance of passing GA, let alone FA. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:21, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Archived_nominations/July_2023&oldid=1167745364"