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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 promoted by Ian Rose 10:01, 7 July 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Harold Davidson

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Harold Davidson (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Brianboulton (talk) 19:06, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is the sad story of the Rector of Stiffkey who, after being kicked out of the Church in 1932 for immorality, embarked on a series of bizarre money-making stunts to raise funds for his legal appeals. One of these involved him preaching in a cage of lions...bad idea, that. In this tragi-comic tale Davidson emerges as an enigma; was he basically an eccentric but well-meaning do-gooder—a pesterer of women, and a nuisance no doubt, but essentially harmless? Or was he something more sinister, a serial molester and predator on young girls? THAT PHOTOGRAPH did much to answer the question at the time, though later assessments have tended to be more sympathetic. The article was very thoroughly treated at its peer review, here; thanks to all concerned. Any further comments will be equally welcome. Brianboulton (talk) 19:06, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I commented at PR. It was a fine article then and is a fine article now. It meets the FAC criteria on all prose points (I am not competent to comment on images) and is clearly of FA quality. The balance between comedy and tragedy is beautifully done, and the narrative is as clear as one could wish. An article for the author and Wikipedia to be proud of. Tim riley (talk) 20:15, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for these kind comments, Tim, and for your help in getting the article into shape. 08:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Support I also was with the PR crew. Excellent article, my concerns were answered, what more can you ask?--Wehwalt (talk) 21:41, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Most grateful. Tha article was quite fun to do, despite the underlying sadness. Brianboulton (talk) 08:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support I also was involved in the Peer Review and all of my concerns were addressed there - this is very well done and deserving of FA status. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Image Review As part of the peer review I also reviewed the seven images in the article, which are either free or have a valid fair use claim. Five images are clearly free (of places associated with Davidson's life), and two images are Fair Use (the lead image and the image of Davidson with the half naked girl used in his trial). Together they show the two sides of the vicar presented at his trial. Both have clear Fair Use rationales, and as part of the PR there was a specific unanimous support by eight editors for the fair use image of Davidson with the near naked girl being included in the article. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 02:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am, as always, most grateful for your advice and help over image questions. Once again, thank you for your time, and for your suppport here. Brianboulton (talk) 08:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I was another traveller at PR: the article has improved further since my few comments there and I have no hesitation in giving my support. - SchroCat (talk) 08:58, 1 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks indeed, much appreciated. Brianboulton (talk) 08:53, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Inclined to support - just a few comments :

  • In the lede, "direct evidence of improper behaviour is slight" might be worth rewriting as "there was no obvious evidence of improper behaviour" which (imho) scans more easily.
  • Can you confirm that "Sholing was a poor parish ... many of whom were inclined to drunkenness" is in the source given? (Cullen p.27) It sounds rather strong to tar an entire community with the same brush. At least one of my friends has ancestors who lives in Sholing and would not take kindly to the insinuation they were all alcoholics!
  • The text says "many", not "all", so your friend's ancestors are obviously in the clear. I wonder if they were part of Davidson senior's flock? Cullen is rather more direct than I have been in describing Sholing's inhabitants, but he does not especially emphasise drunkenness so I have trimmed those few words. Brianboulton (talk) 21:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not good on MOS lawyering, so I left this, but the quote ending desperately to be diverted". - should the full stop not go before the closing quotation mark?
  • "After thwarting her suicide attempt" could probably just be written as "After preventing her suicide attempt" - in my view, you "thwart" something where somebody is doing something malicious or bad and you stop it, and implying suicide is like that is controversial, to say the least.
  • "and an income in 1906 of £503 per annum" - is it worth putting in a comparable figure adjusting for inflation for today, or do you think that distracts from the main narrative?
  • Not only distracting, but possibly contentious; there are too many theories about how to calculate present values of historic monies. Footnote 3, I think, gives a more useful indication of Davidson's financial circumstances; he was one of the better-remunerated clergy. Brianboulton (talk) 21:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Davidson married Molly Saurin" - "Molly" is redundant, no other Saurins are mentioned in the article.
  • Possibly, but "Davidson married Saurin" does seem unnecessarily cold and curt. If someone deletes the Molly, fair enough – I won't reinstate it, but personally I'd prefer to leave it. Brianboulton (talk) 21:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'll come back to the rest of the article, but in summary these issues are all minor and should be easily fixable, if not just opinion and not relevant to fix to pass FAC. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:03, 2 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He explained that he was looking for a diseased prostitute who had been infecting his men" just doesn't scan right. I don't think a prostitute deliberately infects her clients. Perhaps substitute "infecting" with "liaising with".
"deliberately" is not suggested, but "infected" is what the sources say, along with "wreaking havoc". I don't think "liaising with" is strong enough. Brianboulton (talk) 23:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "a clever writer and entertainer [who] pays attention to duty" - can you confirm this is cited to Tucker pp.15-16. With direct quotations, I find it's best to put the cite right after the end of the quote.
  • "and that one day his investments would pay off; much of his" - semicolon can be replaced with "and" without making an overlong sentence and helping the wording flow better.
  • That picture has a valid non-free use. Theoretically, the original (which, if commercially published without a credit more than 70 years ago, might be in the public domain) could be retrievable from somewhere like the British Library's newspaper archives. However, as that's kind of asking to find a needle in a haystack, we can leave that issue to one side for now.
  • I think it highly unlikely that the photo was published until Cullen's biography was published in 1975. It would have been part of the records of the court, to which Cullen acknowledges he was given access, and he presumably had permission to publish it. Brianboulton (talk) 23:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As you may have heard, Gale is opening up the entire of the Daily Mail archives from 1896 to 2004 here. The Mail, though a step up from the Daily Mirror in terms of tabloid press, is not above running sensational stories, and I dare say there might be something related to Davidson buried in there.
And that's it. A fascinating story, and one that puts our minor squabbles at the dramaboard into perspective, I think. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:21, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for these additional comments. Brianboulton (talk) 23:03, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I participated at the peer review and believe that this meets the FA criteria. I therefore support. Nominator asked me for a source review, but I do not own the books in question and am not a subscriber to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, so I don't feel I can do this properly. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful regarding the source review —Cliftonian (talk) 12:24, 3 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I'm a bit late to this, but I read the first few paragraphs and couldn't stop! What an odd little story, which perhaps would not be out of place in a Carry On film. Just one query, which does not affect my support. Sarastro1 (talk) 18:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Tucker argues that "Harold Davidson probably deserved to be quietly defrocked or his shortcomings as a priest", but nevertheless…": Is "or" a misprint (I assume it should be "for")? Sarastro1 (talk) 18:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review:

  • Ref 27 is not quite formatted the same way as the similar refs 43 and 79. The latter two have just one "pp." for two page references. Following that, should ref 27 be "Cullen, pp. 42–43 and 59"?
  • Ref 51: missing "." after pp
  • The "ODNB" reference citation for Davidson is defined twice with two different access dates, which is confusing the citation error checker.

Otherwise sourcing looks good. Sarastro1 (talk) 18:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • The format errors are now fixed. On the ODNBs, I don't quite understand the problem. Ref 9 is to Davidson's ODNB entry, Ref 106 is to Bertram Pollock's. I accessed them on different days. Am I misunderstanding something? Brianboulton (talk) 20:56, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not a sourcing problem as such, and doesn't affect what is visible. But there are two <ref name=ODNB> definitions (if that is the right term! I'm not too sure) which both give a citation for the Davidson ODNB article; the information in replicated, with two different access dates. It shows up if you do a citation error check. But rather than give a convoluted explanation, I've removed one of them which solves the problem, and I don't think I've broken anything. (I hope this makes sense to you, as I've just confused myself). Sarastro1 (talk) 21:05, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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