Talk:Helene Hathaway Britton

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Theleekycauldron (talk) 23:01, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

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Helene Hathaway Britton in 1915

• ... that when Helene Hathaway Britton (pictured) became the first woman to own a Major League Baseball team in 1911, her fellow owners encouraged her to sell, but she kept the team? Source: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/helene-britton/
  • ALT1: ... that when Helene Hathaway Britton (pictured) became the first female owner of a Major League Baseball team in 1911, she received unsolicited offers to buy the team, but chose not to sell? Source: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/helene-britton/
  • ALT2: ... that when Helene Hathaway Britton (pictured) became the first woman to own a Major League Baseball team in 1911, her fellow owners encouraged her to sell and she received unsolicited offers she declined? Source: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/helene-britton/
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Amish in Ohio
  • Comment: Not sure exactly the best way to word the hook to include (1) first female owner, (2) male owners wanted her to sell, (3) men made unsolicited offers, and (4) she didn't sell (right away anyway).

5x expanded by Muboshgu (talk). Self-nominated at 18:32, 10 February 2022 (UTC).

• I'll review this now Mujinga (talk) 18:44, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
• Unfortunately DYK Check says "Article has not been created or expanded 5x or promoted to Good Article within the past 10 days". Muboshgu can you explain this? Then we can proceed.
• for now Mujinga (talk) 18:54, 14 February 2022 (UTC)
• Actually this seems ok, the 12 feb version is 6483 characters (1049 words) and the version before expansion is 1085 characters (186 words), so I'll proceed, DYK Check must be having a bad day Mujinga (talk) 19:01, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

• General eligibility:
• New enough:
• Long enough:
• Other problems:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
• Other problems:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - ?
• Interesting: - ?

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: I think ALT0 is ok, ALT 1 and ALT2 don't read so well to me. however, the separate claims need to be cited with the same ref here as is on the article. sabr.org presently backs "encouraged her to sell" and "she kept" but not " first woman to own a Major League Baseball team in 1911" so can the relevant sentence in the article have the sabr.org ref added? further, it's really not clear to me from the article who the "fellow owners" are - sabr.org says it was her mother, which isn't in the article. or do you mean other club owners? if yes then i'd prefer that spelled out that they made offers. so a bit of work is needed to tweak the hook, or if you want to propose an entirely different one, maybe the ladies night factoid might help. Mujinga (talk) 19:19, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@Mujinga: it's all cited in the article as it needs to be. Such as how her obit says she was the first woman to own a big league baseball club. "Fellow owners" was referring to the owners of the other seven NL teams who were encouraging her to sell, not her mother the part-owner of the Cardinals, so that will have to be made more clear. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:33, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Muboshgu Cool ok then I'd suggest adding "fellow club owners" or something. Right now it isn't all cited as it needs to be. There needs to be a sentence in the body of the article about her inheriting the club in 1911 and becoming the first woman owner; then the cite referencing these facts needs to be added on the ALT here. At the moment the obituary cite is only referencing her death on the article (and doesn't mention 1911). Mujinga (talk) 08:27, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Mujinga, you're right that it wasn't all referenced properly in the article. I expanded the sentence about her inheriting the estate to make clear that it included the team and that she was the first woman to own it.[1] – Muboshgu (talk) 19:43, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Hiya so to deal with the various issues:

On a reread of the ALTs I still don't like ALT2, but ALT1 has grown on me, so I'd like to strike ALT2 and I'd say ALT1 is good to go, with the addition of the NYT cite on it

suggest adding "fellow club owners" or something similar to ALT0 to get rid of the discussed ambiguity and adding the NYT cite on it

There needs to be a sentence in the body of the article about her inheriting the club in 1911 and becoming the first woman owner - the NYT cite is on the relevant sentence now - Muboshgu nearly there! Mujinga (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2022 (UTC)

Mujinga, ALT1 sounds good – Muboshgu (talk) 04:22, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

OK I'll answer my requests myself and ask for a second review. The two new ALTs with citations are:

• ALT4: ... that when Helene Hathaway Britton (pictured) became the first female owner of a Major League Baseball team in 1911, she received unsolicited offers to buy the team, but chose not to sell? Sources: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/helene-britton/, https://www.nytimes.com/1950/01/10/archives/mrs-bigsby-owned-baseball-club-71-first-woman-to-head-major-team-st.html
• ALT5: ... that when Helene Hathaway Britton (pictured) became the first woman to own a Major League Baseball team in 1911, her fellow club owners encouraged her to sell, but she kept the team? Sources: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/helene-britton/, https://www.nytimes.com/1950/01/10/archives/mrs-bigsby-owned-baseball-club-71-first-woman-to-head-major-team-st.html

Mujinga (talk) 11:21, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

• New enough, long enough, neutral, QPQ done, and no close paraphrasing detected from the sources Earwig could scan. I spotchecked several of the Newspaper.com clippings and found no close paraphrasing issue there. Image is squarely in the public domain. I think conjunct facts in one hook are fine as long as both of the corresponding sentences in the article are directly cited. I prefer ALT5 with its more positive-sounding last clause. DigitalIceAge (talk) 21:04, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

ALT5 to T:DYK/P1

GA Review

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

Reviewer: GhostRiver (talk · contribs) 17:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I'll be reviewing this article to help reduce the good article nomination backlog and to gain points in the WP:WIKICUP. Although quid pro quo is not required, if you fancy returning the favor, I have a list of articles in need of review here. — GhostRiver 17:48, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Hopefully the wordsmitthing it's gotten as a DYK will help. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

Infobox and lede

• I'd rephrase the first paragarph so that it's "... was an American baseball executive. When she inherited the St. Louis Cardinals of the National League in 1911, she became the first woman to own a Major League Baseball franchise."
  • How's this instead?
• No commas needed anywhere in "Her father Frank and uncle Stanley Robison"
  • Done.
• Delink "St. Louis Cardinals of the National League" in second para, since they were linked in the first
  • Done

Early life

• Per MOS:SEAOFBLUE, "Cleveland, Ohio" should be one WL (to the city) and not two (Curiously, everywhere else seems to follow this)
  • Done – Muboshgu (talk) 05:08, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• "Britton's father and uncle, Stanley Robison," → "Frank Robison and his brother Stanley" or some other such change to avoid the awkward syntax where it sounds like her father and uncle are the same person (in this case Stanley)
  • Done – Muboshgu (talk) 05:08, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• "bought the St. Louis Cardinals as well" → "purchased another National League team, the St. Louis Cardinals,"
  • Done – Muboshgu (talk) 05:08, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• The Spiders were contracted after the 1899 season. Not immediately obvious what this means to a subject non-expert
  • Hmm – Muboshgu (talk) 05:08, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I changed it to "eliminated", which is in line with the language of the source. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:11, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Owner of the St. Louis Cardinals

1911-1913

• "sole ownership" of what?
  • Fixed
• It also doesn't directly specify in the newspaper article that Uncle Stanley took over the Cardinals upon his brother's death, only that Frank resigned the presidency in 1906 and Stanley is "currently" president
  • I took out "became the sole owner" as it's not explicitly in sources. Frank resigned the team presidency in 1906 and Stanley succeeded him as team president, but they both remained co-owners until Frank's death
• "while leaving Britton's mother the other one-fourth" → "while the other one-fourth went to Britton's mother"
  • Done
• The whole part about the "original will" doesn't specify what the source does, that this is a purported original will and testament
  • Added "purported"
• owner meetings where other owners any way to rephrase to reduce repetition?
  • Removed the first "owner"
• Throughout this section, MOS:LARGENUM should be followed, rounding these "current dollar terms"
  • Done

1914-1917

• See above about the numbers
  • Done
• ""squandered her means to such an extent that her property was imperiled."" → ""squandered her means to such an extent that her property was imperiled"." per MOS:LQ
  • Done
• "Britton became ready" → "Britton was willing"
  • Done
• "The conditions at Robison Field had deteriorated"
  • Done

Later life

• See MOS:SEAOFBLUE above for "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania"
  • Done. For Boston MA too.
• Mention that she died of an illness as per NYT source
  • Done

References

• Good

General comments

• Images are all public domain and obviously relevant
• Per MOS:CAPTION, the last image should not have a period at the end of the caption, as it's a sentence fragment
• No stability concerns in the revision history
• Copyvio score looks good

Putting on hold for now. As always, please feel free to ping me if you have any questions, and let me know when you're finished! — GhostRiver 20:00, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Have forgotten to get started on these.... but I will this weekend. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:01, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

@GhostRiver: all done. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:45, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Muboshgu Sorry for the wait. Bipolar is a pain in the ass. I'm passing this now, as the one quibble I have doesn't really affect GA. While saying the NL "eliminated" the Spiders is consistent with the source, I think the phrasing is awkward for those unfamiliar with that era of MLB, and wouldn't mind the clarification that they were demoted to the minors (albeit with another source). Like I said, does not imminently affect anything as it's coherent with the source, but something to consider. In any case, passing now! — GhostRiver 20:34, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

GhostRiver, no need to worry. I wondered if the delay might've been because I had forgotten to work on this for several days. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:59, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

RS needed

"Both Chicago businessman Charles Weeghman and James McGill, the president of the Denver Bears of the Western League,[7] attempted to buy the Cardinals from Britton,[8] but she resolved to keep the team.[1] Britton attended National League owner meetings where other owners spent time trying to persuade her to sell the team because she was a woman.[9]"

Reference 9 is from 2016 and does not contain any RS that she was pressured because of gender. A RS is needed from the era and not a wistful article from 60 years later with no quotes from fellow baseball team owners, 1950s newspaper quotes or primary works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:D591:5F10:A54B:64D:ADC6:C65C (talk) 06:48, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

RS from that era have their own biases. You should see some of the sexist writing in contemporary reports. I probably included some of those references. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:43, 29 March 2022 (UTC)