Wikipedia:Peer review/Ota Benga/archive1

Ota Benga

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
Someone nominated this article at WP:FAC without consulting me or User:Outriggr about it, and while FA wasn't necessarily my original goal, I want to get feedback geared toward that end.

Thanks, Recognizance (talk) 00:34, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

(I only added a bit to it a few years ago. Thanks for the nod though. I'll provide some feedback maybe, but then I'm tres lazy about wikipedia now so it's probably 5 to 1.) Outriggr (talk) 05:15, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Finetooth comments This is fascinating and generally well-written. However, it can certainly be improved. If I were working on it, I'd think about adding more background material to provide context for the reader, and I'd try to include more dates and possibly re-arrange some of the material to make the chronology more clear. You most likely have tried to find all available sources for material about Benga, but if not, it would certainly be good to do that since the article depends so heavily on so few sources, particularly on the one book by Bradford and Blume. You might consider taking the article to GAN as the next step after additions and revisions rather than jumping straight to FAC. Here are specific suggestions for further improvement.

Lead

• "Benga came to America through the action of businessman and missionary Samuel Phillips Verner. The American Verner, under contract from... " - Since "American Verner" might be misread to mean "not some other Verner", would it be a bit better to say, "Benga came to the United States through the action of American businessman and missionary Samuel Phillips Verner. Under contract from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, Verner... "?

Early life

• "intended to display 'representetives of all the world's peoples, ranging from smallest pygmies to the most gigantic peoples, from the darkest blacks to the dominant whites' " - "Representatives" in the quoted material is misspelled. If McGee or Bradford and Blume spelled it that way, you could insert [sic] after the misspelling to make clear that it is not a Wikipedia typo.

" ...but was later captured by slavers" - Were the slavers Belgians? A little more background might be helpful here.

St. Louis

• "The group arrived ... in late June... " - Is it still 1904?
• "Attempts to congregate peacefully in the forest on Sundays were thwarted by the crowds' fascination with them... " - I wondered what forest was being referred to. Was the exposition held partly in a forest?
• "On a July 28, an attempt to play to the crowd's preconceived notion that they were "savages" resulted in the First Illinois Regiment being called in to control the mob." - Suggestion: "On July 28, an attempt to play to the crowd's preconceived notion that they were "savages" resulted in a call to the First Illinois Regiment to control the mob."
• What did the mob do or threaten to do that led to military intervention? Was the First Illinois Regiment a state militia, or was it part of the U.S. Army?
• "imitating that of the Indians at the Exhibition" - Lowercase "exhibition"? Also, should it be "exposition" or was the exhibition a subsection of the exposition?
• "awarded the gold medal in anthropology at the Exposition's close" - Lowercase exposition?
• Why did Geronimo need special dispensation from the war department to appear in the show? Why was he called "The Human Tyger"? I think a bit more background material would be interesting and helpful here. What else went on at the exposition? Again, this is a matter of providing context for the reader.

Museum of Natural History

• "Benga accompanied Verner when he returned the other Africans, and briefly lived amongst the Batwa... " - It might not be instantly clear from this sentence that he returned them to Africa. Also, the Manual of Style suggests replacing "amongst" with "among". Suggestion: "Benga accompanied Verner when he returned the other pygmies to Africa, and briefly lived among the Batwa... ".
• It might be helpful to include the dates of the trip. Did they stay for weeks, months? Was it still 1904 when they returned to the U.S.?
• "He married a Batwa woman who later died to a snake bite... " - "Died of" rather than "died to"?
• "While Bumpus was put off by the prohibitively high salary of $175 a month Verner had requested and unimpressed with Verner's credentials, he remained interested in Benga." - Missing word? Perhaps "... and was unimpressed with Verner's credentials"?
• What did Verner want to be paid to do? What position was he applying for?
• "However, he would soon find another home for the pygmy." - Suggestion: "However, he soon found another home for the pygmy."

Bronx Zoo

• "At the suggestion of Bumpus, Verner took Benga to the Bronx Zoo in 1904." - Did this visit occur before or after the St. Louis exhibition and Verner's second trip to Africa? The lead mentions two years of travel but doesn't specify what part of that was spent with Verner on his second trip to Africa. Since the lead is to be a summary or abstract of the main text sections, any details like this in the lead should also appear in the main text, usually in greater detail than in the lead.
• "For his part, Verner was unsuccessful in his continued search for employment... " - What employment did he seek at the zoo?
• "he snuck in occasionally to speak to Benga... " - It would be interesting to know what language they were speaking. Did Benga learn English, or did Verner speak Benga's native language, or did they communicate in, say, French? Was Benga multilingual?
• "The two had agreed that it was in Benga's best interests to remain in the United States... " - I assume the "two" refer to Verner and Benga, but it might mean Verner and Gordon since Gordon is mentioned in the next sentence.

Later life

• "His teeth were capped and he was dressed in American-style clothes in an attempt to lead as close to a normal life as possible." - Suggestion: "His teeth were capped and he was dressed in American-style clothes in an attempt to make his life more normal."
• Wikilink root beer?
• "chipped off the caps on his teeth" - Suggestion: "chipped the caps from his teeth"
• "near his benefactor, Gregory Hayes" - I think this is the first mention of Hayes in the article? Who was he? In what way was he a benefactor?

Legacy

• "To this day, the display is still labeled "Pygmy" - The meaning of "to this day" and similar constructions such as "today", "now", and "currently" change with time. It might be better to say something like "As of 2009, the display... ".
• "The similarities between Ota Benga and Ishi, the sole remaining member of a Native American tribe who was displayed in California around the same period – including the subsequent publication of a book on the subject by the descendants of the scientists involved – have been observed." - Suggestion: Scientists noted similarities between Ota Benga and Ishi, who was displayed in California around the same period as the sole remaining member of a Native American tribe. Their observations led to subsequent publication of a book on the subject by the descendants of the scientists."
• It might be good to include the name of the book here instead of just saying "a book".
• "Rather than simply exposing the racism of the American public (as members of Ota and Ishi's respective races perceived them)... " - I wasn't sure here whether you meant "them" to refer to "public" or "racism" (which are both singular) or to Ota and Ishi. If the latter, I don't see the logic. Ishi's people were all dead, and perhaps Ota's were all dead too. How could they perceive anything?
• "in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, using the "CSI approach" - Many readers will not know what CSI stands for. Linking to "forensic science" explains the idea but not the letters CSI. Perhaps it would be better to drop the short CSI quote and simply paraphrase it as "using the methods of forensic science", or something like that. Or perhaps CSI could be explained.
• Wikilink bridge in "bridge of the song"?
• "Dr. Ben B. Halm" - The Manual of Style suggests Ben B. Halm with no "Dr." If his degree or field is important to mention, it can be added after the name in a form like "Ben B. Halm, a surgeon at XYX Hospital" or "Ben B. Halm, head of the drama department at the University of XYZ" or something like that.

References

• All of the date ranges and page ranges in the citations need en dashes rather than hyphens. Thus pp. 200-203 in citation 2 needs to look like this: pp. 200–203

Images

• Images generally are set to "thumb" size in Wikipedia articles rather than forcing a set pixel width, per MOS:IMAGES. The lead photo in the upper right is often an exception.
• Image: Ota Benga at Bronx Zoo.jpg has a problem with its description page. Fact checkers must be able to quickly find the source image to verify the license at the Commons. The link on the description page for this image goes in a circle; it simply replicates the image rather than linking to the source image in the source context. You can fix this by figuring out where the image came from and replacing the circular link with a link to the source page in context.

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the PR backlog. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 02:44, 6 June 2009 (UTC)