Talk:Charles De Geer

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:Charles De Geer/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Yakikaki (talk · contribs) 18:22, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Wolverine XI (talk · contribs) 08:03, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi Wolverine XI, thanks a lot for taking on this nomination. I just wanted to tell you that I'm currently on vacation, and may be slow (occassionally very slow) in responding for the next couple of weeks. I'm of course looking forward to the review and this chance to imporove the article, however. Best, Yakikaki (talk) 11:56, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

• Links to the different titles/occupations in the lead wouldn't hurt

• Fixed.

• He came from a prominent Swedish-Dutch family. He Please don’t start two consecutive sentences with the same word.

• Fixed.

• He was born in Sweden, spent most of his childhood and youth in the Dutch Republic, moved back to Sweden at the age of 18 and would thereafter spend the rest of his life in Sweden. Sentence doesn't read well; please rephrase.

• Fixed.

• His library served his research Not sure what "served" means here

• Rephrased.

• The inclusion of a number of sumptuous and rare works, including a collection of rare music scores Is it rare worth mentioning twice?

• Fixed.

• Unusually for the time, his wife organised the inoculation of all their children against smallpox, for which she was later commemorated with a medal. Is this really important?

• It is important enough for I think three of the other encyclopedic sources I've used to mention it. It sheds light on the Enlightenment environment De Geer lived in.

• The family name should be spelled with a capitalized Looks like you are instructing rather than informing the reader

• Rephrased.

• His contemporary Swedish colleagues tended to call him "Carl", but he himself always only used "Charles". How is this important? Does anybody really care?

• Since you find it problematic I've removed it; however, in some older Swedish sources he is sometimes referred to as Carl, and I therefore included it for clarity.

• He was brought up speaking Dutch. His journal detailing the trip when he moved to settle in Sweden from Utrecht in 1738 is written in Dutch[14] and so is the first library catalogue he compiled of his collections in Lövstabruk in Sweden, from 1738. The second catalogue, from c. 1750, is written in Swedish, with some remarks in French. Sorry but I gotta ask again, is it that important?

• Of course it is important, because it clarifies a key aspect about his identity and nationality. He went from being a Dutch boy to being a Swedish high-ranking public figure and official.

This article suffers from excessive WP:UNDUE weight. It goes into unnecessary details about his childhood, his family, the building and many irrelevant information. This article fails the GA criteria under "focused". I'll give you time to try and improve the article, and see where it goes from there. Wolverine XI ^{(talk to me)} 19:35, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again Wolverine XI for taking on this review. I have addressed the specific concerns above. However, without further concrete pointers and suggestions for improvement I find it hard to address your broader concern. A total of five paragraphs are spent summarising his background and early life, which I cannot agree is excessive. Compared to other GA articles, it seems to me to be more or less average. On the building, I also don't see where the exaggeration lies. I have written one paragraph about it, summarising the subject. His role in restoring and rebuilding a large manorial estate would make him noteworthy in its own right, especially considering he hired one of the foremost architects of his time. If anything, more could be written about De Geer's role in this regard. What other "many [perhaps you mean much?] irrelevant information" the article suffers from I don't immediately see; I would need your guidance as reviewer to point it out if I am to be able to constructively address this problem. Charles De Geer was notable for many things at once; to me, that is what makes him remarkable and fascinating. I believe that many readers who take the time to read the article about him on Wikipedia would also be happy to get substantial information about these different aspects, especially from an article bearing the GA mark. That has been my reasoning when including what I have included in this article. Kind regards, Yakikaki (talk) 16:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

It's clear that more work is needed, so I'm failing this good article candidate. I do not wish to enter a WP:FIXLOOP. Please read the article carefully and look at other GAs like Carl Linnaeus. Do re-nominate once the concerns are covered. Wolverine XI ^{(talk to me)} 17:12, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Charles De Geer/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Yakikaki (talk · contribs) 17:15, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 10:20, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Comments

• Noted the comments in GA1, and your replies.

• Terms in the lead like "also" and "a number of" are basically redundant, we'd be better off without them.

• Perhaps "Charles the Entomologist" should be in the lead, and in boldface with a redirect from that term to here?

• Löfstabruk (also spelled Leufstabruk, Löfstabruk) developed - Perhaps the first mention should be spelt with a "v" to make sense of this?

• In 1738, his father died and Charles moved from Utrecht to Lövstabruk. By then preparations had already been undertaken for Charles to move back to Sweden and be introduced to the running of the estate. - is a bit repetitive. For example, this could be worded "In 1738, his father died and Charles moved from Utrecht to Lövstabruk, as planned, to be introduced to the running of the estate."

• The rest of that paragraph repeatedly says "running of the estate", "management of the estate". This could be condensed.

• When there are 2 images in a section, I'd put the first one on the left.

• I've done a very small bit of copy-editing.

• The last volume was edited by De Geer on his deathbed. -> De Geer edited the last volume on his deathbed.

• De Geer participated in public life. He was present ... -> In public life, De Geer was present ...

• At second mention, Carl Gustav Tessin -> Tessin.

• I don't think we need italics for "knight" and "Commander Grand Cross" in English.

• I feel that the scientific career section rather underplays his scientific contributions. The paragraph on debunking cuckoospit and spontaneous generation is a good start, but the next paragraph, covering his main work, says little other than that he did a lot of work. Can we hear (or see) a bit more about what these pests were, and what he found out about them? What did he discover about insect metamorphosis? Other findings?

Images

• Portrait needs a US PD tag on Commons.
• Swan image seems to be wrongly licensed, should be PD-art|PD-old-100 and PD-1923. CC didn't exist till 2001.
• Same for Small Tortoiseshell image.
• Same for Memoires image.

• I'd suggest the 'Portrait and title page' image be made wider as it's a double-page spread, while the Small Tortoiseshell image should be upright. To save faffing about I've made these small formatting changes, feel free to adjust them.

• He made all the illustrations - this is remarkable (paralleled probably only by Thomas Bewick, who was however nowhere near as scientific; has anyone compared the two men?). I think we should have a small gallery at the end of 'Scientific career' to illustrate the variety of his illustrations: you might want to show examples of each of the insect orders he covers in most detail, for instance, to give readers an idea of his taxonomic range, or examples of larvae, adults, damage to plants, etc to show his coverage of life-cycles and ecological and economic impact.

• I think a gallery would be more than justified; at the moment we have a swan (not by De Geer) and one butterfly: this doesn't in any way do justice to the man's work or artistic skill.

Sources

• Shouldn't De Geer's works be listed somewhere here? At least a single entry for his Memoires.

• All the spot-checks I tried check out.

Summary

A fascinating article. My feeling is that it's basically ready for GA but that it rather underplays De Geer's artistic skill and scientific ideas. The former should be fixed with an image gallery of his illustrations. The latter may imply some discussion of his zoology. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:15, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Chiswick Chap for taking the time to review the article. I'll get back in the coming days to address the points above. All the best, Yakikaki (talk) 07:21, 7 July 2024 (UTC)