Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Charles Atangana

Charles Atangana[edit]

Self-nomination. Peer review was helpful but has petered out. The article's about a Cameroonian leader who served under both the Germans and French. He opposed armed resistance to the colonials and instead tried to work within the system to help his people. It's an interesting story, and I hope others will find it worth their time to read. This would be my first Cameroon-related FA, so I hope folks'll find it worth the star. Thanks, — BrianSmithson 13:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support Very nicely written article. Very intresting man but forgive me if I missed it, but who gave him the name 'Charles', since you say his birth name is 'Ntsama'? Also 1 sentence struck me as akward 'Nevertheless, he was never loved by everyone.' Anyway thanks for writing this wonderful piece for a man I would never had found out about without wikipedia. - Tutmosis 20:49, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for the comments. He took the German name Karl upon baptism and this was changed to its French version, Charles, when France became the colonial power in East Cameroon after World War I. I'll take a look at that sentence; it bothers me a bit too. Perhaps a suitable replacement would be, "Nevertheless, some of his subjects opposed his reign." — BrianSmithson 22:16, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Great article, no complaints. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. The only thing that broke the narrative flow for me is "Sso initiation ritual", which is neither linked nor described, so I ended up fruitlessly looking around the page for more information. - Banyan Tree 00:18, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Great article, a pleasure to read. --Robth^Talk 00:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support Well written and highly informative, combined with good referencing. One (very minor) issue, the photograph used to illustrate the head of the article - I would suggest that it be increased in size, to about 250px width - make a bolder initial impression. In an ideal world I would suggest that you might think about replacing that photograph with one which is less indistinct and fuzzy, perhaps also think about finding some more for the Later life section. Having said that, I readily appreciate that photographs will be pretty thin on the ground for this subject matter. All in all, good work.

Xdamr^talk 00:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I've incorporated the suggestions folks have made here so far. The Sso ritual may very well deserve its own article; Quinn mentions it only briefly in his biography, though. He seems to go into more detail in this journal article, but I don't have access to JSTOR at the moment and can't learn anything more. At any rate, I've tried to define it a bit better. As for images, I agree more would be better and some of the ones that are there leave something to be desired. When I get back to Cameroon (someday), I plan to visit and photograph the Atangana monument and palace, but that could be several years. Quinn says that Atangana had several photographs made while in Germany; some of these are presumably still available somewhere, but probably only in German sources. I promise to add anything I find, of course. — BrianSmithson 08:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Marvelous article! Congratulations! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 14:56, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object. - for the moment by the following issues: Support
- Remove redundancies of vague terms of size, such as much, some, etc. For instances, (I picked them randomly)
  - "....was the paramount chief of the Ewondo and Bane ethnic groups during much of the colonial period in Cameroon." → try to remove "much of".
  - "...appointed Atangana interpreter for some 500 Bulu hostages,..." → well, it has an exact number, why would make it more ambiguous?
  - "...received some sort of administrative post,..." → try to replace "some sort of" with "an".
  - etc. There are a lot more. Copyediting is really needed to improve the prose of this article.
- I guess at FA level, redlinks are bad. It means to point a reader to something that does not exist yet. Just create a stub of 1-2 paragraphs article, if editors think that certain terms are needed to be explained more in other article. Otherwise, remove the redlinks.
- Per WP:LS, the lead section should be carefully sourced as appropriate. I found several sentences that should be sourced in the lead section. For example: "He proved himself an intelligent and diplomatic administrator,...", "His loyalty to the German Empire was unquestioning,..." , etc.
- An encyclopaedia item should be accurate whenever it will be read in the future. Please avoid using inexact words to state a time, per WP:MOS. For instances, today, present-day, now, soon, etc.

— Indon (reply) — 18:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- - Good comments, but a couple of points. Redlinks aren't a problem under the Featured article criteria; also, if something is sourced in the body of the article, it doesn't need to be sourced in the lead. --Robth^Talk 21:06, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid you're wrong. The lead section should be sourced, although it's taken from the body. A reader reads the lead section first, and may raise a question about its source. (S)He is not reading directly to the body. Per WP:LS, the lead section should be able to stand at its own; thus it should have proper citations. The redlinks, though are not listed at WP:WIAFA, they are bad, because an FA article will be put in the main page. Is it so difficult to create a stub article? — Indon (reply) — 21:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My reading of WP:LS does not require citations in the lead. The lead should be a summary of the body of the article; as such, it should be drawing on information supported by the citations and sources in the rest of the article. This is fairly standard practice. Now, if a quotation is used in the lead or something like that, it then becomes appropriate to cite. --Robth^Talk 22:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All right, if you insist. It's okay. Now let's see in this article. From the lead section: "He proved himself an intelligent and diplomatic administrator,..." → It's a definitely unsourced claim, but I can't find anywhere in the body. — Indon (reply) — 22:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Robth's right. The lead does not need inline citations; it only summarizes information that should be properly cited in the body of the article. And red links are not against the criteria. They may be used to justify not putting the article on the main page, but they can't be used to keep it from attaining FA status. At any rate, I'm busy trying to turn them blue, so that shouldn't be a worry. As for your other points: "Was paramount chief of the Ewondo and Bane during the colonial period of Cameroon" does not give the same information that "during much of the colonial period" does; one is vague, one is more specific. He "received an administrative post" sounds okay, but "some sort of administrative post" better describes the vagueness of the sources on this issue in my view. The 500 hostages number is not precise. It could be changed to "about" or something, but "some" sounds better to me. I won't dispute that a fresh pair of eyes going over the article could help it, but the "vague terms of size" that you mentioned seem justified to me. But I'll give it another look over today. Thanks for the comments, — BrianSmithson 22:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry; missed your latest comment. The "intelligent and diplomatic' bit is inteded to summarize anecdotes from the article, but a source can easily be found for the specific text. I'll add one later today. Thanks again, — BrianSmithson 22:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, citations unnecessary in most cases in a lead, and there's no strict rule about this. Redlinks best minimised, but not actionable. Why not create stubs for at least a few of them? "much of the colonial period" is OK to me in the lead, provided we're given the chronology in the body of the article. Tony

(reply to Brian, indent to the left for better reading). I see it now. At first, I thought myself when I was reading the article, that it seems the article has vague sources. Now you stressed it that indeed sources are vague. All right then. Now, I'll see your changes today first, before I change my vote. ;-) — Indon (reply) — 01:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Reply to Indon; de-indenting more) No, no, your comments are good. I'll be out of town this weekend, but I am taking your comments very seriously. I've got a printout of the article with each vague size term and reference to "now" or "today" highlighted. I've already killed some of them, and I'll take a long, hard look at the others once I get back home and to my sources this Sunday. It's possible some of the vague time references have more specific dates that can be substituted, others maybe not so due to the vagueness of the sources. I can also provide sources for a couple of summarizing sentences in the lead.

I have to confess that I'm at a loss for a way to replace "what is today Yaoundé" and "present-day Limbe". Does anyone have any suggestions, or is it okay to refer to the present day in instances like these? -- BrianSmithson 02:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've replaced any vague language that the sources allow; anything that remains reflects the vagueness of the sources used. I also added two references to summarization in the lead that wasn't directly citable from the body of the article itself. I still don't know how else to say that Victoria is now called Limbe and that Atangana was born in a place that is now called Yaoundé without referring to "now" or "today". But I hope your vagueness objections have been taken care of. — BrianSmithson 08:09, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

~~Object~~. More information is needed to establish that the images are in the public domain. When was the book they're from published? Who took them? Haukur 08:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Would you prefer the article have no images, or that it use images that were taken back in the 1910s? — BrianSmithson 07:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that came off as more curt than I intended. The books and websites do not give information on the original source of the images. They are all clearly from the German colonial period, which ended in 1916 or so. If necessary, I can axe one of them and claim the other two as fair use, I suppose. Seems like overkill, though, for images taken so long ago and probably published in German sources long ago. What would be the proper course of action in a situation like this? — BrianSmithson 07:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you can establish that the images were published before 1909 they are definitely in the public domain in the United States. If you can establish that they were published before 1923 they are probably in the public domain in the United States. If you can establish that an image was taken by someone who died in 1935 or earlier (what the tags currently claim) then it is in the public domain worldwide. If you can not clearly establish any of these things then add as much information as you can find and use a tag like Template:Fairold. I don't want you to remove any of the images but I would like the licencing information on them to be as clear and informative as possible. Haukur 09:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed the photographs' licensing tags to address this issue. Unfortunately, none of the sources used gives detailed information about the dates of the photos or the photographers. I have added as much information as possible and changed the tags as per your suggestions. Thanks again, — BrianSmithson 09:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! Objection struck. Haukur 10:10, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object Inline citations need specific page numbers when using a book source. LuciferMorgan 21:21, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean. The article does give page numbers unless the source is a web page. — BrianSmithson 07:10, 12 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I contacted LuciferMorgan about this on his talk page, and he is indeed referring to the web references. These, of course, have no page numbers. LM is currently on wikibreak, so I thought I'd mention this with the link to the discussion. -- BrianSmithson 05:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Well-researched, well-written article. A minor point: my curiosity is aroused by the statement that 'the the nationalist scholarship that blossomed after Cameroon's independence in 1960 resurrected his story', but the article doesn't say anything about this nationalist scholarship. If it's possible to find sources on this, I think it would be an interesting angle to add to the article. — mark ✎ 10:05, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]