Wikipedia:Peer review/Bath School disaster/archive1

Bath School Disaster

This article deals with the May 18, 1927 series of bombings that killed forty-five people, mostly grade school children, in Bath, Michigan. The article itself is part of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Michigan and Featured Article status is being sought. The anniversary date is coming up shortly and I hope this can be ready for Article of the Day status for that date. Thanks for any feedback you can provide. This is the first request for Peer Review. Jtmichcock 03:37, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

• Outstanding work on a great article. I do have a few questions/suggestions/comments that may or may not be helpful. 1)Maybe add something more about any legislative actions/reactions. Did this action lead to any restrictions on the purchase of explosives? Did mortgage laws change? Was their scrutiny of security in Michigan or American public schools? 2)Was the term "terrorism" used then? If not, what would it have been called? 3) The external links could maybe be subcategorized thematically and maybe a few more could be added, if available.

Thanks for reviewing. 1) Unlike Columbine and Oklahoma City, there was no legislative action other than making the $2,000 donation by the state legislature. The only impact was that pyrotol was eased out of the marketplace but that may have happened anyway because the WWI surplus was running out. The article on Pyrotol notes this. 2)The term "terrorism" was not, to my knowledge, in common use at the time. Ellsworth in his book called Kehoe "the world's worst demon" and you see this expression repeated in other media. That indicates to me that Kehoe was viewed in quasi-religious term more than he would be today in political terms. Kehoe clearly blamed his financial predicament on the property taxes and his aim was to punish those who he believe were wrongly taking his money. As the article notes, he had money and could have paid off the mortgage easily, so in what can only be described as a deranged attitude, he lost all perspective. If Kehoe were alive today, I believe he would be called a terrorist as is discussed on the Talk page of the article -- if for no other reason that calling him a "demon" would not be something that would show up on media news reports. 3) I have added some categories that I hope sorts the links together and have added three links that I previously pared off dealing with Gado's article, the internment details for the victims and a reference to the Michigan Historical markers. Jtmichcock 04:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

NB: I have been persuaded that the article should be titled "Bath School disaster" with the lower-case D. I will modify this after the peer review is completed insofar as I am concerned that a Move now could screw up this sub-page. Jtmichcock 05:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

• Put all sources used to write the article in the "References" section: either like Hugo Chávez#Notes or Dawson Creek, British Columbia#Notes and references. Keep the "External links" section for the other sources (those not used, but might be useful further reading). The layout has 3 sections: two with 3 sub-sections each and one with none. Always be considering and re-considering the layout and formatting. In this case I would go with either the use of sub-sections in all sections or none at all in order to make it parallel. Also, some specifics:
  • "...series of bombings of a farm, elementary school and car..." - consider making it a parallel list by dropping the adjective "elementary".
  • I don't think "Andrew Kehoe" is proper use of bolding.
  • "...prior to the events of May 18, 1927." wikilink all full dates per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting.
  • Nice use of a table.
  • "...$12,000, paying $6,000 in cash and taking out a $6,000 mortgage." currency is not stable, please provide a year. --maclean25 02:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I have made the corrections as requested, except that I want to keep the "day of the disaster" section as the longest section of the article not only for style reasons, but to illustrate the complexity of the plan. The third section (Aftermath) is actually a lede with two subheaders, the first section had the equivilent of "who, what and where" that I think captures the place, person and weapons rather nicely. As to Andrew Kehoe, that name redirects to this page. Because of the redirection, style manual says the name should be bolded so folks understand that they have arrived at the right place and can see the name pop up. Thanks again and let me know what you think of the edits. Jtmichcock 04:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

• A 'disaster' implies it wasn't a deliberate act - is this really the right name for the article? What about 'Bath School attacks', 'Bath School massacre' (also used as a term in your references), or, even better, 'Bath School bombings'? Don't small-font your note section. Get rid of the list of fatalities - Wikipedia is not a memorial - but make sure the list is in an external link, and note it in the description of that link. Proto||type 15:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The newspaper reports, books published and every other source since 1927 has referred to this as the "Bath School disaster." Despite the fact that it might be considered a misnomer, it would be a bit difficult changing the name now since it's never been called anything else. Besides wihich, it was a disaster. As to the list, it isn't a memorial, its the details of the IDs and particulars of the dead. The Columbine listing has a similar charting of dealing with a large number of dead that would not easily fit into the prose of the article. In terms of notes, I can't recall any FAs that aren't showing notes at 80%. It may not be a convention, but it's close. Thanks for your input. Jtmichcock 16:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. If that's what it's called, it's what it's called. Really, the Columbine article shouldn't have a list, either. Proto||type 11:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)