Talk:Fairfax Harrison

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Canadian Paul 05:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

I will be reviewing this article in the near future, hopefully tomorrow. Canadian Paul 05:24, 16 March 2011 (UTC)

A day late due to circumstances in real life, but better late than never!

GA review (see here for criteria)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

1. Reference #25 is dead, as its appearance in the "References" section
2. Under "Early career", "Harrison joined the Southern Railway Company in May 1896 as a lawyer, later becoming an assistant to the companies' President in 1903 and Vice-President in 1906." - I assume that this is supposed to read "assistant to the company's president", and normally I would just fix this myself, but I thought I'd double check just in case there was a reason to use the plural of "company" here.
3. Under "First years as President", fourth paragraph: "Harrison established a foreign trade department for the railroad, hoping to take advantage of the railway's ability to both the Mississippi Valley as well as Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico ports." - There seems to be a verb missing here between "ability to" and "both the".
4. Under "1920s", third paragraph, "Harrison also spent long negotiations in securing the legal foundations of the railway..." - That sentence sounds funny to me and I don't think it is grammatically correct
5. Nearer to the end (from "Great Depression" on) there are a few one-two sentence paragraphs that should either be expanded or combined with the surrounding ones to help improve the prose flow.
6. Under "Writing career", "Harrison was also a writer, writing on Virginia history and genealogy." - Using "writer" and "writing" back to back is a bit disruptive and sounds funny. Maybe a replacement word for one them here? Also, the word "works" is used far too often in this paragraph and needs to be changed up a bit.
7. Under "Family, death, and legacy", second paragraph: "Harry DeButts described him as "a little cold when you first met him, but underneath he was a very warm, admirable, capable and wise man"." Who is Harry DeButts and why should I care about his opinion of Harrison? Even a few words on why his opinion is meaningful (ie. "Harry DeButts, a close personal friend of Harrison, described him...")
8. Per WP:LEAD, the intro should cover information from all major sections of the article. Currently, I don't see anything from "Family, death, and legacy"

And that's about it! As usual, I'm placing the article hold for a period of up to seven days. Good luck! Canadian Paul 20:57, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Probably Monday before i have enough time to get to this. This weekend is "take down the outside Christmas decorations" weekend. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:44, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I think I've addressed all of these. I used an internet archive of the webpage, as I couldn't easily find the document on the newly reorgranized website. I hate that... Ealdgyth - Talk 13:58, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

There's still the issue with the short paragraphs, and I don't think that they are unavoidable. For example, under "Writing Career", there is one that states "Harrison also served on the Executive Committee of the Virginia Historical Society." If this can't be expanded upon, then there's not reason not to attach it to the paragraph above. Canadian Paul 05:28, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Fixed . Ealdgyth - Talk 12:50, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, some of the shorter paragraphs still look a bit weird to me but, as I can't offer any constructive criticism or come up with any suggestions on how to improve them, it's probably just my overtaxed brain thinking too hard. Anyhow, the article looks good now and therefore I will be passing at as a Good Article. Congratulations and thank you for your hard work! Canadian Paul 05:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Citation style

This article has a consistent citation style. Per WP:CITEVAR, anyone wishing to change that citation style needs to gain consensus on the talk page before changing the reference style. Instead of continuing to change the style when reverting, can the editor who is changing the style please revert and come discuss? Ealdgyth - Talk 14:18, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Re Harry DeButts reference, text was amended to cite him as "protégé" but perhaps should mention that DeButts served as Southern Ry president, 1952-1962.(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_A._DeButts) Michaeljy (talk) 17:14, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

House, ancestry, etc trivia

This is a featured article. The lead should not have anything that isn't developed in the article body. Nor should we be discussing trivial ancestry - nor should we be using phrasing like "descended from the ancient and prominent English gentry family of" - that's very very very POV wording. And the addition is sourced to the work by Harrison himself. We shouldn't be using primary sources such as this to discuss information. And for the sake of all the gods, can you like learn to format citations to at least pretend to match the system in use in the article??? A bare url in a featured article is just making work for other editors even if the addition was at all useful or due weight, which it is not. --Ealdgyth (talk) 22:15, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and yeah. WP:BRD. The proper thing to do when you're reverted is to discuss, not to readd the information. --Ealdgyth (talk) 22:17, 2 March 2020 (UTC)