Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John Savage (soldier)/archive1

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) 17 June 2024 [1].

John Savage (soldier)

Nominator(s): Grosseteste (talk) 13:36, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the 15th century knight Sir John Savage, who was one of the main commanders of the Tudor forces at the battle of Bosworth Field and a close companion of Henry VII. I significantly edited this article a number of years ago and subsequently it was raised to GA status. I believe it to be close to the required standard to be raised to FA status and would have initiated this review at that time if I had had the time. I would greatly appreciate some feedback as to what would need to be done in order for this review to be supported. Kind regards, Grosseteste (talk) 13:36, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Suggest adding alt text

Don't use fixed px size

File:Coat_of_arms_of_Sir_John_Savage,_KG.png is missing a tag for the design. Ditto File:Arms_of_Arnold_Savage_(d.1375).svg

File:King_Edward_IV.jpg: the given tag requires that the image description includes information on steps taken to try to identify the author, and when was this first published?

File:John_Howard,_1st_Duke_of_Norfolk.jpg is incorrectly tagged. Ditto File:Archbishop_Savage.png. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Nikkimaria, sorry to be somewhat obtuse (not intentionally so) could you please explain what you mean by alt text, fixed px size and these tagging issues, I've been away from editing for some time but I'm sure I'll pick it up and I will endeavour to resolve these issues. Many thanks and best regards, Grosseteste (talk) 15:06, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alt text is an alternative description added to an image to support those who are unable to see it to understand what it is meant to depict. Fixed px size is a set image size in pixels, which is discouraged because it overrides user preferences. Tags give information about the copyright status and reuse of an image, and must be sufficient to identify why a particular work is free or in the public domain in the US and (if hosted on Commons) in its country of origin. Does that help? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for your response Nikkimaria. I have removed all fixed pixel sizing from images and I have added more detailed alt text (I believe this has addressed the issue of the description not being specific enough). As for the tagging issues, how would I go about resolving those. Most of the images used were uploaded by other editors and were already on commons. How do I add tags to these images after the fact. To address one specific tagging remark, the portrait of Edward IV is held by the National Portrait Gallery in London and their records merely state that the artist is unknown - https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02029/King-Edward-IV?LinkID=mp01427&role=sit&rNo=0. Thanks again for your help with this (and understanding as I am sure you do not often receive so many questions!) Kind regards, Grosseteste (talk) 15:45, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wrt to alt text, it looks like what you've done is edit the captions - those are different things from the alt text. Check out WP:ALT for more details.

Wrt tagging and image description pages, after the image is uploaded you can edit the image description page as you would any other page. So for example, to add steps taken to try to identify the author, you just go here and add that information. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:42, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for the clarification Nikkimaria. I've added alt text to all images now and will try and provide some further information to the images so that they are correctly tagged Grosseteste (talk) 16:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Review and source review

This version reviewed.

IB: Not sure all those relatives are necessary, esp the general familes.
Can you separate your footnote from your citation (so no [1][1])
Thos Stanley does not need to be disambiguated as 'the elder' as his son has not been mentioned, and even when he is, the Lord S. who d. 1459 is the only lord.
Clarify "Sir John Savage died three years before Stanley"; otherwise, which Stanley is referred to?
"Which included Clifton"
The second section on the origins of the family should come before the bit about the article topic specifically
"his younger brother": John Savage's.
Thos Savage became Abp of Yor (a career). His younger brothers became knights (events). The younger brothers may have been knighted, but those weren't their careers, which, of course, was royal service.
Personally, I'd call the gentry the gentry for this period. "County" is more of a modernist analysis, whereas the late medieval gentry was literally the political class and not just in the localities.
Stanley the younger: Sir Thomas Stanley, as he doesn't inherit the barony for another 15 years.
Link Elizabeth Woodville; she's a queen, not the lass what eats the dung.
"The now knighted...". We know. Stick to just calling him Savage per MOS:SURNAME.
Replace "later that same year" later that years with "April... the following month"
"as well as" doesn't work when discussing events 11 years apart. New sentence, something like, "In 1482 he returned to military service, joining the King's brother..." etc.
The parenthesised text can be folded into this new sentence.
"Aiding them to victories", etc. doesn't really make sense; the important thing is that they won, but even that's not directly relevant to the article, as he would have been personally responsible for neither an English loss nor victory.
Check your duplicate links (This script will create a link in your left-hand sidebar and will highlight them for you automatically). Specifically, I noticed that you have King Ed unlinked in 1471 but then you link—on first name terms!—"close to Edward".
Lose "he was later found worthy" etc, as it reads like a press release. Stick to something like "Following Ed's death in April 1483, Savage acted as a pallbearer at the royal funeral".

Pausing at this point.

Response

Thanks very much for your review Serial Number. There were some very useful suggestions here which I have taken on board and put into place.

Those which I have not yet enacted.

1) On the separating the footnote from the reference to avoid [1] [1] , I had noticed this but can't seem to separate the two. Is there a simple way to do this?

2) Clarify "Sir John Savage died three years before Stanley"; otherwise, which Stanley is referred to? Do you mean the line that says Savage died three years before his father? As I could not find a line similar to the one you quoted.

3) The second section on the origins of the family should come before the bit about the article topic specifically Could you explain what you mean by this? I presume you mean the Ancestral background section but this is the first section of the article. - Edit - I realise now you probably mean the Family section and thus will incorporate this with the ancestral background section or move it up.

4) Could you please tell me how you install scripts, as I note that you recommended this in the source review section also and I imagine that these could both prove very useful.

Thanks again for your suggestions and advice, I will try and address the referencing issues shortly!Grosseteste (talk) 16:30, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review

I'll do this after you've got a couple of reviews in. It's a nice bookend to Sir Thomas Neville, of the other side of the parish :) ——Serial Number 54129 15:38, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In the meantime, some formatting points:

You're missing several publisher locations, chapter page ranges and in some cases ISBNs or OCLCs. Install this script, it will highlight all the technical stuff FACs reuire in their source reviews.
For your primary sources, format them (using {{Cite}} template) as you have your secondary material.

Update: I've done a fair amount of reviewing (quite a lot of copyediting required but not insurmountable so), but I'm taking a pause to have a look into the sources. I'm seeing some glaring omissions, frankly. There is almost no recent scholarship from the last 30 years, and this is a period that has been effectively rewritten in that time. Obvious by their absence are Michael Hicks' and Charles Ross's biographies of Richard III (in the Yale Monarchs series). Worse is the absence of material from the reign of Henry VII. Stanley Chrimes's biography is essential; all three of these are into multiple reprints. Probably Thornton's Cheshire and the Tudor state 1480-1560. These are all absolutely fundamental authors and texts, specialists in the reign.
What really highlights the lack of modern scholarship, however, is the reliance on old sources.
Pre-war:

Crossley's Mediaeval monumental effigies, 1925
Shaw's The Knights of England, 1906
Williams, The Rebellion of Humphrey Stafford, 1928
Weber, Pope Innocent VIII, 1910
Victorian:
Seacombe (not Seaacombe), The History of the House of Stanley, 1821
Magna Britannia is from 1808
Hales and Furnivall is a reprint from 1888
Ecclesiastical Memorials Relating Chiefly to Religion, and the Reformation of it is a reprint from 1721 (or 1822 if you prefer!),
Armstrong's Ancient and Noble Family, 1888.
Of the post-war sourcing, the Thorpe Festchrift is sound (although you need to format it properly and include the actual author, chapter, etc, not just the eds); although, to reiterate, it is from 1976 and much work has been done on the period since. Lockyer & Thrush are sound. Ditto Kauffman. The title of the ODNB page you used is more than what fn67 currently says... it omits almost everything. The ODNB editor is also irrelevant; just use the entry author.
The bottom line is there's a hell of a lot of primary sourcing and very of little of recent years. There's absolutely no harm in the former at all; they can provide colour and detail not available or suitable to the modern scholar, but they only come into their own when they are backed by solid, modern, independent expert scholarship, or what we call "high-quality reliable sources". I think I'll leave it there for the time being. Best of luck with the nomination. @FAC coordinators: ——Serial Number 54129 17:50, 18 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Grosseteste, you need to establish that each source is not only reliable, but also high quality. And that the article "is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". The onus is on you. Frankly I don't think that you can, but am willing to give you some time to prove me wrong. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:07, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Gog the Mild, can I ask why it is that you think that? Grosseteste (talk) 22:08, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Matarisvan

Hi Grosseteste, marking a spot here. On first glance, the lead and body look good but the references are a mess, many sources don't have SFNs, ISBNs or OCLCs. Without these, reviewers cannot do spot checks to see if the information cited is accurate and if it violates copyright or not. Cheers Matarisvan (talk) 11:51, 25 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note

This has been open for more than three weeks and has yet to pick up a support. Unless it attracts considerable movement 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) 19:59, 8 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nine more days in and no sign of a consensus to promote, so I am regretfully archiving this. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:16, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:16, 17 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.