Talk:James Hood Wright/GA1

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.

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GA Review

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Reviewer: Goldsztajn (talk · contribs) 23:00, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

I'll review this.--Goldsztajn (talk) 23:00, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Parking this for the review. --Goldsztajn (talk) 23:36, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Rate	Attribute	Review Comment
1. Well-written:
	1a. the prose is clear, concise, and understandable to an appropriately broad audience; spelling and grammar are correct.	Language is somewhat informal (He became wealthy, He worked at this for several years, Wright was a giver to philanthropic institutions, He was associated with the Republican Party and his religion was Presbyterian.)
	1b. it complies with the Manual of Style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation.	Lead is too short, article has too much trivial material (see below),
2. Verifiable with no original research:
	2a. it contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline.
	2b. reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose).
	2c. it contains no original research.
	2d. it contains no copyright violations or plagiarism.
3. Broad in its coverage:
	3a. it addresses the main aspects of the topic.	There seems to me somewhat of an elehphant in the room... ie a huge issue missing from the article. In 1894 he leaves an estate of US$20 million, which in 2020 dollars is equivalent to $605 million. This would place him squarely within the top wealthiest proportion of the US population at the end of the 19th Century. There is not a strong sense from the article of how we became so wealthy ... he's a partner at 34 in Drexel, Morgan & Company ... this seems unusual to say the least ... the article implies he simply rose up the ranks through natural ability....but there were no connections? no family links? Linking to J. Hood Wright Park as part of a legacy section would be appropriate. There's some detail not discussed in the article whihc could be used from the NYC parks page.
	3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).	More than half the article discusses relatively trivial details − his wedding, his estate arrangements and a light in his house. No doubt some of this information is of interest, but given the relatively small amount of detail in other areas this material overwhelms the article.
	4. Neutral: it represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each.	Overly sympathetic, no critical observations whatsoever...was the subject completely without contention his entire life?
	5. Stable: it does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute.
6. Illustrated, if possible, by media such as images, video, or audio:
	6a. media are tagged with their copyright statuses, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content.
	6b. media are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions.
	7. Overall assessment.	Perhaps to be classed as a lessor figure of US 19th Century capitalism, but certainly within the orbit of the great oligarchs and clearly an important figure amongst the founders of US financial capitalism. However, from this article there is not a strong sense of this. Too much focus on small details. Placing the article on hold to see if some additional sourcing can be provided to give greater context to the origins and scale of his wealth. Some copy editing would also be useful.

• @Goldsztajn: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:39, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
•  Done All issues have been addressed. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 21:54, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
  • @Goldsztajn and Doug Coldwell:. I am confused. It looks like a review has not been conducted, unless I am missing something. What is the status of this? AIRcorn (talk) 22:49, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
    • Apologies to all, non-virtual world has had a strong hold. If I cannot finish this by Sunday 25 OCT 23:59 UTC, I will cancel my review. --Goldsztajn (talk) 00:17, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
      • @Doug Coldwell, Aircorn, and BlueMoonset: apologies for the delay, review completed. --Goldsztajn (talk) 04:45, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

 Working Thanks for review. Will be working on the improvements and issues over the next few days. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:38, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• @Goldsztajn: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:39, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
• @Goldsztajn: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 09:44, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Doug Coldwell, apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience. I've gone through all the edits that have been made since the review. As far as I can see, there has been some minor copy-editing and corrections, the lead has had two sentences added and one new source added. I'm not really sure that anything substantial has been added in terms of content of the article. The article remains heavily weighted towards trivia (the details of his wedding, social activities and the installation of electric lights in his home take up 50% of the text). There's still no sense of the relative size of his wealth (ie he was probably within the top 1% or 2% wealthiest people in the US) nor any indication of his legacy (I provided a link in the review which highlights legacy issues; any reason this was not helpful?). I would also recommend asking someone from the guild of copy-editors to look over the article; there remains room for improvement. I'd be happy to allow more time if you think you can address these issues, since these would be crucial in my view to achieving GA status. (Courtesy ping to BlueMoonset who had nudged me concerning this review.) --Goldsztajn (talk) 23:29, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

•  Working I'll start working on upgrading more with some additional research today. Thanks for legacy info link.--Doug Coldwell (talk)
•  Done @Goldsztajn: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 20:21, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Doug Coldwell Please give me a few more days to come back to you. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 01:28, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Two items. I discovered this article on the Requests list for the Guild of Copy Editors and found it interesting. I agree with Goldsztajn completely that Hood's wealth/business success/rise is given short shrift. It needs to be expanded substantially. Second, the content can be "tightened up." E.g., "Wright was born in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 2, 1836.[1] His parents were William Wright and Sarah (Hood) Wright." can be edited to "Wright was born in Philadelphia on November 2 1836 to William and Sarah (Hood) Wright." Clearer, more to the point. I am happy to help with that, but do not have time to look for citations on how Wright accumulated his substantial wealth. Should I begin? Or wait for more data? Thanks. Cleveland Todd (talk) 18:17, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Cleveland Todd: Yes, if you could start with a professional copy edit that would be good. I will continue to do some more research to see what I can come up with so I can expand the part on how Hood obtained his wealth. Thanks for your help.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:50, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Doug Coldwell. I am slowly copy editing Mr. Wright's article and finding him a fascinating subject. His estate would have been $600 million today - not too shabby. That's why it's even more important that you find some citations on how he did it. I think most investment bankers in the so-called Gilded Age invested heavily in the companies who turned to them for financial help and underwriting, which probably is one way Wright began accumulating his wealth. Wright was also an investor and confidant of Thomas Edison, serving on the board of Edison's Electric Co. I'm sure Wright invested heavily there, but we seem to have data on putting electricity into his house. Most of these guys kept their financial activities quiet, but looked for publicity elsewhere - society, philanthropy. I just finished Edmund Morris' Edison; sadly Wright is not mentioned but Edison bios might be worth a look. Cleveland Todd (talk) 17:17, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Doug Coldwell. I have finished my copy editing - mostly for style and clarity - although I did add a conflict on claims for first house lighted electrically. You would think that there would be more references for something so important, but maybe they did not realize it at the time. Also, I took the house electricity out of Wright's "Career" section. We need to find more information on Wright's accumulation of wealth. Cleveland Todd (talk) 16:25, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

•  Done @Goldsztajn: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:04, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Doug Coldwell: I'll have a look over this in the next two days, but two immediate questions: why has the total of the estate been reduced to US$5 million, when the New York Times indicates the estate value was US$20 million? What is the source for the US$150 million 2020 equivalence of Wright's estate? (As far as I can see there is no citation...and seems to me to grossly under-estimate his wealth in today's terms ... for example, the US purchased the Philippines in 1898 for $20 million).--Goldsztajn (talk) 22:22, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I can see now the new sourcing that indicates an estate of $5 million (although these sources all convey the same information in more or less the same wording, so presumably originated in a single wire/dispatch service). What's not absolutely clear is whether the $5 million is the contested amount or the total amount. Editing between the different versions conveys slightly different meanings. FWIW, I would at this stage preference the NYT, given its status as a newspaper of record and footnote that later sourcing indicates lower value for the estate. --Goldsztajn (talk) 22:43, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

• @Goldsztajn: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 14:17, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Hi Doug Coldwell − Thanks for doing further work on this, however, I see two problems remaining. First, there is no answer to the question I asked earlier about the source for the current value of his estate. Is there a source for this or have you made a calculation? If it is a latter, the basis for the calculation should be included in the article. If you have used the {{inflation}} template this requires using the correct index for US capital inflation, ie the US-GDP index eg {{inflation|US-GDP|20000000|1894|2019}}. Second, the estate section now is far too detailed; there are three lengthy paragraphs, some judicious editing and use of footnotes would be appropriate here to cut down the length. Kind regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• @Goldsztajn: All issues have been addressed. Can you take another look. Thanks.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 11:12, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• @Goldsztajn: Are you willing to let another reviewer finish off this review? If so, let me know and I will have another reviewer finish it. Thanks. --Doug Coldwell (talk) 15:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Doug Coldwell, I'll finalise my comments by the end of the coming weekend. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 11:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Final comments

Let me start by apologising again for the delay in completing this review and I can certainly understand and accept that this has been frustrating for the nominator. However, and unfortunately, given the extremely limited replies to my comments from the nominator, I've had to spend extended time reassessing the article every step of the way, given there has been no detail from the nominator of what has and has not been addressed. Repeated assertions that "all issues have been addressed" do not actually help this reviewer understand what has been done. At each step when I have examined the changes since the review began, the emphasis of the comments has generally been ignored. The only significant area which has been addressed in a manner which contributes towards GA status has been the section on the subject's legacy. There has been no significant editorial work to address the extreme imbalance and over-detailing in the article of trivial aspects of the subject's life and many of the additions during the review have exacerbated the problem.

When the GA review started (version ID973874392) the article was 729 words:

• 22% (162 words) covered his career
• 26% (188 words) covered the use of electricity in his home
• 11% (78 words) covered his wedding
• 8% (59 words) covered his estate following his death

After a number of bouts of editing since the review started the article is presently (version ID1003202900) 1484 words:

• 12% (181 words) covers his career.
• 10% (151 words) covers the use of electricity in his home
• 9% (133 words) covers his wedding
• 35% (525 words) covers his estate following his death

Another editor (Cleveland Todd) noted in two separate comments "I agree with Goldsztajn completely that Hood's wealth/business success/rise is given short shrift" and "We need to find more information on Wright's accumulation of wealth". The most notable issue regarding the subject, ie his business career and the accumulation of his sizeable fortune, now forms barely a tenth of the article. The central comment by two editors (significantly add to the business/career aspect) has not been addressed and the advice given around reducing areas that were not of central importance has also not been addressed. The article fails criteria 3a and 3b.

Overall, I have to admit to being somewhat flummoxed in this review with the limited responses here. I can acknowledge that my delay may well not have encouraged engagement, but my delay per se cannot have totally discouraged engagement. With some engagement from the nominator, it might have been possible to mutually develop new perspectives. I might have been able to help with the changes (as I have done with other GA reviews I've undertaken) if questions had been posed, or if there were more than perfunctory responses to my comments. FWIW, I believe it is perfectly reasonable and acceptable for a nominator to disagree with the comments of a reviewer, *but* there needs to be an open engagement and discussion that provides a justification for not accepting a comment or the offering of an alternative; sadly, that did not occur here.

Aside from addressing the imbalance, a couple of other points to consider for a future GA nomination. The article is over-referenced to the point of refbombing in a number of cases. The article still retains informal language and would do well with another round of copy-editing. A Google image search shows a number of images dating from the late 19th/early 20th century for the Knickerbocker Hospital which are in public domain and would be much better than the present one taken from a movie set. The figures produced by the inflation template in the legacy section are incorrect since the correct index (US-GDP) is not included.

Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 14:06, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

• @Goldsztajn: Thanks for the constructive ideas for future improvements. I'll work on polishing the article over time and resubmit in the future.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 15:33, 7 February 2021 (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.