Wikipedia:Peer review/Garret Hobart/archive1

Garret Hobart

This peer review discussion has been closed.
I've listed this article for peer review because… I intend to nominate it for FA, likely by the end of the year, my second vice president. Garret Hobart. Often forgotten or mocked, he has long been overshadowed by his prominent successor, Theodore Roosevelt. This is the other guy to be McKinley's vice president. He turns out to be very interesting and as one who grew up in New Jersey and for whom the place names are more than place names, well, I couldn't resist.

Thanks, Wehwalt (talk) 11:22, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

A couple of brief comments:

• The first link is a piped one behind "24th", which annoys me for some reason. Experienced editors and readers will know what is going on there, but I fear it will throw new readers, but then any new reader will fail to understand a piped link until they've clicked on it. I guess I'm saying that the very first links maybe shouldn't be a piped one.
• Have just been reading List of Vice Presidents of the United States and Acting Vice President of the United States and the infobox here seems slightly misleading. The infobox says "Succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt". Technically, the position was vacant for over a year (November 21, 1899 to March 4, 1901). Is it possible for the infobox and article to make this clearer? For example, the succession box at the bottom of the article says "Vacant; Title next held by Theodore Roosevelt". Probably not relevant to this article, but following Hobart's death, did this bit apply and to whom? "Under the 1792 Act of Succession, in the absence of a Vice President, the President pro tempore was next in line for the powers of the presidency."

I am not sure. I know the PPT was second in line as late as 1868, because that would have been who succeeded in the event of Johnson being convicted after his impeachment. Yes, I will play with the infobox and with the piped link.

• No picture of the statue? Is any of the history of the statue or mausoleum known (including sculptor/architect and date of erection of the mausoleum)? Any details of the funeral? Were any details ever released about the nature of the 'serious heart ailment' (our article on his wife says 'heart failure', but that might be over-specific)?

We don't know. No source I have gets specific, and medical technology of the 1890s was ... scary. The statue. I did go to Paterson last month, the City of Paterson happens to put their Christmas tree ... well you guess. There is an image in Magie, I will use that if necessary but I am hoping for better. There will be something there one way or the other by FAC. The mausoleum is not unusual, I walked around it and saw no inscriptions, memorials, etc, the only difference between that and any other mausoleum at the cemetery is that Hobart's is unusually large. Yes, I can add details on the funeral. It was a full dress affair, as you would expect. Yes, I can add the sculptor but as I recall it is not notable.

I see that you've added a picture of the statue and linked the sculptor's article. The fact that we have articles on lots of these sculptors is one of the things that reassures me that Wikipedia is still going in the right direction in terms of gradual expansion into areas where you might not have expected articles a few years ago. About the mausoleum, it's really the date of its erection in relation to the death of Hobart and (later) his wife, that I was hoping for. It should be mentioned somewhere. Carcharoth (talk) 07:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

• Sources all look great. One thing I'm finding it difficult to get a handle on is the relative weighting of the sources. Which ones have been used most and which ones only in passing? On a quick glance, I see 14 citations the 1910 biography by Magie. I presume those are mostly filling in biographical details that are not in any way contentious, and that any analysis is sourced to more recent publications (such as the 2010 New Jersey Historical Society paper). The latter is 20 pages and the former is several hundred pages. Can you give a bit more background on the relative merits of each of these two sources and the credentials of either the authors or publishers or both? The authors are Magie (referred to once in the article as 'Hobart biographer') and Connolly (who you cite prominently right at the end of the article).

Princeton has his papers, but nothing on Hobart or I would have paid a call "Consists of papers of Magie (Princeton Class of 1897, professor of classics at Princeton University) relating primarily to his activities as a member of the staff of the American Commission to Negotiate Peace in 1919, including a transcript of his interview with Woodrow Wilson on May 22, 1919. Also present are background notes and memoranda by Magie, William Yale, and others on Syria, Lebanon, Armenia, Greece, and other Near East countries, his report "The Kurds of the Ottoman Empire," and his notes taken as a student of the classics in Germany (1901-1904)." He's qualified enough for a biographer, for his time, but that is another reason why I was careful in what I relied upon. Biographies from 1910 need to be used defensibly. Connolly seems a well qualified historian, his page is here. He cites Magie extensively, by the way, for considerably more than I do.

Many thanks for these details. Magie's work negotiating the peace after WWI sounds interesting! Carcharoth (talk) 07:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

• Are the external links to four other web biographies and the Find-a-Grave page needed?
• Is the 'Republican Party' navigation footer template really needed?
• Is the biography portal link really needed? (Am personally ambivalent here - if there are such links it should be on all biographies, not just those where someone cares enough to add or remove them).

It is the sort of thing that I am reluctant to remove because when I do I get a shirty comment on my talk page. Ditto on the template, etc.

• Lead says he died aged 55. Main body of article is silent on the age at death.
• Is there a reason a picture of his wife isn't included here - it would seem a logical choice.

I'll add one.

• The infobox here names four children. His wife's article says they had two children, one of whom died. The main body of the article is silent on their children.

Two of them died in infancy; the third died in young adulthood. No great trouble adding the info. Garret Jr. was the only child to survive him.

Overall, the article looks in good shape. Carcharoth (talk) 07:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for the review. This will be next to FAC once Mark Hanna clears the page and I will have implemented your comments by then.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:25, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. You missed a few comments (ignore the first one I made, that's just me grouching about piped links). It's the comments on external links and age at death (which you could cover at the same time as adding the funeral details). Not sure whether you intend to come back to those later, so just mentioning it here. I'll keep an eye out for a week or so, but if I lose track hope all goes well at FAC and hope someone does a more thorough review of the US politics aspects of the article (which I skimmed over - it made sense, but I didn't have anything more useful to say than that). Carcharoth (talk) 07:49, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I did not implement all your comments yet.--Wehwalt (talk) 09:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

I think I'm up to date. I think we should keep the official sites. Find a grave really doesn't seem necessary, as we tell the reader where Hobart rests.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

All looks great. Thanks for looking up and including the funeral details (just wish I could access the NYT article). Carcharoth (talk) 03:35, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

If you send me an email, I will send you a screenshot. Thanks for the review.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)