Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Brooks–Baxter War/archive3

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2c
Please cite this so other people can locate what you're talking about. Publication place, Author, Page number, Title of Work within the ?Newspaper? ^ Van Buren Press. February 18, 1868.
Remove excess dot. Moneyhon, Carl H..
Few english language publications begin lower case. ^ Green, Nicholas (1876). here Criminal Law Reports. Cambridge, England: Hurd and Houghton. pp. 434-439. Retrieved July 14, 2009.
This error occurs in your |url= tag, "url=http://books.google.com/books?id=t-xGAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA434&dq=%22Thomas+Boles%22+%22John+Edwards%22+arkansas&lr=&ei=H28tSv-hCoy4NIaakfsG#PPA434,M1 here" Fifelfoo (talk) 23:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Few english language publications begin lower case. ^ a b Foster, Roger (1895). here Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States. Boston, Massachusetts: Boston Book Company. pp. 685-688. Retrieved October 6, 2009.
Please space this reference correctly? ^ Elisha Baxter:Reconstruction Unravels. Old State House Museum. Retrieved October 6, 2009. Resolved: Miscited to begin with. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please capitalise this reference correctly, or confirm that the title is listed lower case on the article title? ^ a b c d e f g "the Brooks-Baxter War". History of a Landmark. the Arkansas Times. 1998. Retrieved September 15, 2008. Resolved: Miscited to begin with. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Appropriately cite the journal article, possibly by gracing us with the Title of the journal article, its page references, in the journal as printed, instead of relying on a link, "^ Meriwether, Robert W. (Fall and Winter, 1995). Faulkner Facts and Fiddlings (Volume XXXVII, Nos. 3-4 ed.). Faulkner County Historical Society. Retrieved October 11, 2009." Discovered the article title at the weblink provided, inserted for the nominator. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could you grace us with a date, and standardized publisher citation style: ^ "Correspondence, Assistant Justice". The American annual cyclopedia and register of important events (D. Appleton & Co.) 14: 43. Resolved to the best of my ability, Google Books doesn't provide internal content. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your link even says the date: D. Appleton and Company, 1875.
Appropriately citing the Old State House Museum. These are online exhibits, not standard published works. Resolved using "unpublished" style as they're an exhibit. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, just, no: Please provide a citation that contains an Author, a Publisher, a Year, preferably the Location Published, and other indicators of what type of work it is and where it came from (if a Journal, the Journal's title) ^ a b Elisha Baxter: Reconstruction Unravels, accessed May 16, 2008 Oh look, it was from the Museum too, and the nominator simply didn't add appropriate bibliographic information. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Most cites end with a full stop, some short cites do. Consider all short cites to end in full stops to match the longer cites and bibliography.
In what publication was this reference published? If this is the name of the publication, what is the name of the section of the edited collection you're quoting? ^ Wilson, James Grant and Fiske, John, ed (1888). John Thomas Newton. D Appleton Co.. pp. 509. Fixed. Nominator failed to include the chapter title in the reference, and failed to indicate the article cited in the bibliography. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bibliography, Various what... really, is that the title of the article you're relying on "Various Articles" from above and here you only rely on one page?: Wilson, James Grant and Fiske, John, ed (1888). "Various Articles". Appleton's cyclopædia of American biography (D Appleton Co.): 509. see above Fifelfoo (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This sounds like a bunch of rambling. I don't know how I'm supposed to get anything approaching constructive criticism from this. --The_stuart (talk) 05:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's not rambling, but it is very concisely expressed, to the point where it might not immediately be clear what Fifelfoo is saying. Shall I try and translate? (I don't speak fluent Fifelfoo, but I can get by in the language, I think...)

Decline 1c 2c = I, Fifelfoo, use "decline" not "oppose", since I don't oppose any articles making FAC diff. However, in my opinion, the article currently fails Featured article criteria 1c and 2c, namely "well-researched" and "consistent citations". Let me give you the instances in which I think that the citations are inconsistent (criterion 2c):
  • Your reference 3 is "Van Buren Press. February 18, 1868." This is not a full citation, because it lacks the following information: Publication place, Author, Page number, Title of Work within the Newspaper (if it is a newspaper). Please add these to the citation.
These old newspapers don't have authors or titles and they are basically two pages front and back, so that is all there is. --130.184.211.7 (talk) 21:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your reference 5 has "Moneyhon, Carl H.." It has two dots, but should only have one. [Translator's note: the explanation was that your citation template automatically adds a "." after the author's name, which makes the manually-added "." after his initial redundant]. Please remove one. [Translator's note: This has been done, as part of an edit in which I fixed some hyphen/dash problems]
So it's fixed. --130.184.211.7 (talk) 21:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your references 8 and 9 both begin with the word "here" in lower case, e.g. "here Criminal Law Reports". Are you sure this is correct, since few English language publications begin with a letter in lower case? Should it just be "Criminal Law Report"? Please check and amend if necessary.
I can't figure this one out, when I view the reference view it doesn't have the "here".--130.184.211.7 (talk) 21:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Etc...

Does this help? BencherliteTalk 13:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: My sympathies are with the nominator here. I acknowledge that Fifelfoo does useful work in the areas of sources and citation formatting, but his/her use of quaint or cryptic language can be a mite confusing, not to mention irritating. Bringing an article to FAC can be stressful enough for nominators, without their having to crack a code to understand a reviewer's comments. Please, Fiflefoo, bear this in mind. Brianboulton (talk) 19:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • An alternate suggestion. While I may hold up promotion until MOS and citation formatting issues are resolved, I have never denied promotion over these issues. An alternate is that Fifeloo simply indicates here that there are 2c concerns, and then places that list on article talk, where those issues can be resolved without the lengthy discussion here. That's what I often do. What ever you decide, Fifelfoo, please feel free to move all of this commentary, keeping 1c (which is policy, not guideline) here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:16, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Either a bunch of my concerns are actually 1c in disguise, like the lack of verification providing materials making the material "verified" by an incomplete citation unverifiable (or uncheckable for RS status), and I should be recording the "hard" ones at 1c; or you may have to consider not advancing otherwise good FACs because the nominator has not presented adequate citations to verify the material. As an example (from this nomination), the Museum citations are only decent because of a significant amount of work I engaged in, the Richard Owings souce names him as an Author on the website, but he isn't cited (though surprisingly his name appears in the ref tag <ref name=owings>, also it isn't appropriately indicated that the cited work is a reprint published as late as 2009, (I extensively searched for the material). The Nomination presented a journal article with the journal title in place of the article title, and no page numbers, all of which were available from the courtesy link presented. Similarly a cyclopedia was undated, when the courtesy link contained the publication date. Fixing a majority of the central citation errors amounted to about an hour of dense editorial labour. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fifelfoo, one of the aims here is to avoid frustrating nominators, delegates, and other reviewers with citation formatting issues that are hard to follow. Another alternate is to do what many other reviewers do: say something like "Citations are not completely and consistently formatted, publishers, titles, authors, and dates are missing; please ping me when citation formatting is corrected so I can review the article for 1c. I'll place a list of formatting samples on talk". Something like that would help lessen frustration for nominators, and keep the FAC easier to read, and would probably lower the amount of work you are having to do as well. Very long FACs are offputting to subsequent reviewers, who may think the article is so troubled that they decide not to engage. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:19, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you think that will be an appropriate way to proceed, I'll do it in future. But the deeper I dig into 2c with this particular article, the more disturbed I become. Driggs (1943) was actually published in 1947 as a Masters Thesis. In cases like this, if I'm going to present a verse terse statement of the problems with citations, you'll see under 1c headings "Material not verified by reliable sources, citations are insufficient to indicate sources." Fifelfoo (talk) 02:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm all in favor of 1c concerns being amply expressed on the FAC page :) 1c is policy, and an important one; it will fail a FAC, while 2c is guideline, and it's easier to check 1c if 2c is cleaned up. It's not "our job" to clean up citations for the nominator; pointing out samples and asking them to fix them before you review further is really enough-- you don't have to do the rest for them. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:27, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some fields have simple requirements though, also, there is a great deal of hostility to appropriate levels of citation (this is a 1c/2c issue). Reprints, volumes, books in series (only sometimes), place of publication, all often go to 1c in a History or Biography article. The fact that this one had missing titles, authors, places, pages, miscited... urf. [Blah, forgot to log in after a browser crash] Fifelfoo (talk) 03:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I sympathize :) See the nominator's previous FACs at Talk:Monte Ne, from my days as a reviewer :) But other, very experienced reviewers are frustrated by some of your commentary, so we're exploring here other ways you can cover 1c and 2c in other reviews as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I know; my aim isn't at causing a civility issue, or intimidating users, I'm trying to settle into a way to provide high quality reviews, which are useful, but don't intimidate, or wreck other editors... work in progress. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:25, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've also noted that the nominator hasn't touched the article since October 30 :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think one of the big problems here is that good source material for this topic is very difficult to come by. For instants, Driggs is probably my best source. It's a master thesis so it was reviewed by a board of scholars in the state where this happened. I have in front of me right now the only copy I know of of that thesis and it lists 1943 as when it was submitted and 1947 as when it was passed, I have updated it to 1947. The next best source is the Harrell book, which is available on archive.org. He was actually there. It is probably the most referenced source on the subject, but it's also written by an amateur and blatantly bias in places. It's have scrap book, half rambling. He uses newspaper clippings, full articles at times, and his own opinions as reference sources. Newspapers make up the next major source I have, and these were blatantly bias as well, and really difficult to site because there are typically no authors given, and no titles for articles. It's a front back sheet of paper with long political tirades. Beyond this I have bits and pieces from museum websites and clips from encyclopedias and other random books and Arkansas Historical Quarterlies that I have found with Google books, and most of those use either Harrell as their main source or newspapers of the time, or it's just second hand information passed down. I believe that writing a well referenced piece on this subject, up and till now, would have been impossible. After all, it was a "master piece of confusion". I honestly will try my hardest to fix any errors pointed out to me in the formatting of my references, but I don't think it is fair to not pass my article due to lack of "good" references. The event happened and I think my article is pretty fair about how it happened, given what evidence there is to go by. I suggested in the last FAC that I add a section about the source material so that readers would be aware that what we have to go by isn't 100% reliable, but I don't think I got any feedback on that. I appreciated your reviews of my article, and I hope I can get it fixed up. --The_stuart (talk) 18:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep plugging :) I'm sorry your FAC became the sample for how we could help Fifelfoo present his reviews, but by keeping it off the main FAC page, and on talk, I hope the discussion hasn't interfered. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Stuart - given the fragmentary nature of your sources, may I suggest that you approach it much like I approached Urse d'Abetot, and do include that section on the sources. That would make it clearer that the information available is often not without biases and where it is from. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
i support that suggestion. A comment or section on sources appears worthwhile in this case. However, one of the issues if you are claiming sources are biased is that the article will need reliable sources for those claims of bias. Such an assessment cannot be original research. Good luck :-) hamiltonstone (talk) 01:54, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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