Talk:Mother Solomon

Note for reviewers

I do not have access to Marsh 1984, a quite detailed biography. Still, I believe the article is broad enough for GAN. Much of the book is repeated or summarized in Marvin Jr. 2015 and Labelle 2021, and the two Croneis 1991 articles are practically stand-ins. I am in the process of contacting Ohian libraries that may somehow lend the book, but we'll have to go without it for now. Averageuntitleduser (talk) 15:57, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

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.

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

Nominator: Averageuntitleduser (talk · contribs) 15:57, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: TechnoSquirrel69 (talk · contribs) 00:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

This seems like an interesting subject, and I'm more than happy to return the favor for your review of Worlds (Porter Robinson album)! Expect comments in the next couple of days. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 00:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Much appreciated! By the way, I recently received the biography mentioned in the article through WP:RX. It would be useful for fleshing out details, which I'll be getting around to, but I still believe the article addresses the main points. Anywho, hope you enjoy! Averageuntitleduser (talk) 02:59, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@Averageuntitleduser: That sounds great! Would you prefer to incorporate material from that source before or after the review? I'm happy to put this on hold and come back to it later if that would suit you better. Let me know either way! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 03:41, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Sure, I'll do that now! Expect me to be done within two to three days. Averageuntitleduser (talk) 11:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@TechnoSquirrel69: The bytes may have decreased, but the word count sure hasn't! Right, I believe the article is ready for a review. Averageuntitleduser (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Excellent, I'll be over in a couple of days with my comments! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 20:35, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

@Averageuntitleduser: I'm getting around to this review slowly but steadily owing to some other things that are keeping me busy at the moment. However, could I ask you to send me exerpts of a couple sources I've not been able to get library access for? That'll help me do the number of verifiability checks that I like to do for a GAN review. The sources in question are Labelle 2021, pp. 53–63, and Littlefield Jr. & Parins 2011, pp. 273–274. Let me know whether or not that'll be possible, and you can reach me over email or Discord, whichever you're more comfortable with. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 17:16, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Should be sent through Discord. Take your time, and let me know if you need anything else! Averageuntitleduser (talk) 21:55, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Received! Review is on its way. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 04:00, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Though I truly find it a shame to do so, I am quick-failing this nominee. Several issues which may be more manageable individually have added up to an unmanageable review. Under other circumstances, I might've extended the review and worked with you to iron out the issues to push this article over the finish line as I have for some other nominees. I'm unfortunately unable to make that commitment at the moment, and I don't think it would be fair to string you along for feedback. My primary concerns lie with the lead section, the neutrality and unencyclopedic tone of several statements, and the uncertain reliability of the sources. Note that I stopped my prose review when I started to come up against these issues, so the later sections haven't received as much attention in this review.

However, please don't let this discourage you from continuing to work on the article! I admire the depth of research you've put into this subject and I think that, with a little work, this article has lots of potential not only for another GAN but a future FAC! I'm happy to help out where I can, so let me know if you have any questions! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 02:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Alright, I've responded to the comments below for the ease of future reviewers. If anything, thank you for failing it rather than coasting me along. It helped me realize how much this article needed a good shearing, some less verbosity, and some more neutrality. Again, thank you for the critiques as well as the compliments! I'm excited to see where this article goes. Averageuntitleduser (talk) 01:19, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): It is factually accurate and verifiable, as shown by a source spot-check. a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism): It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): b (focused): It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: 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):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
· · ·

Lead

• Is it normal to mention the county where a person was born in the infobox? I understand there's some disagreement between the sources, but that seems to me like even more of a reason to leave it out.
  • Done
• While we're at it, the link should only encompass "Owl Creek", not the rest of the address. The same applies to the second sentence of the prose.
  • Done
• "Wyandot Mission Church" should include the city, state, and country as well.
  • Done
• The lead, especially the opening paragraph, gets far too detailed in places. Information like the exact Indigenous sites she visited as a child or the value of belongings she had stolen receive undue weight placed where they are. I'd recommend reading through Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography § Lead section and seeking other biography articles as examples. This will require a significant refactoring of the lead to address.
  • Agreed. I've both broadened it and trimmed it a fair bit.
• Information is also presented in a somewhat confusing order. "Two of her children with David Young, who she married in 1833, were buried in its grounds." directly follows a sentence about her at age eight, meaning these two sentences already cover a large swath of her life in a non-chronological order.
  • Agreed. It should be more straightforward now.

Body

• "Eliza anticipated that she would ..." It's ambiguous which person this pronoun is referring to.
  • Fixed
• "... and while there, Solomon spotted many rabbits." This seems to me like a rather odd detail which would fit better in a story of Solomon's life than an encyclopedic biography. There are several other mentions of similar details, such as "... enacted a tea party with them by an oak tree when she was still five, with acorns for cups." and "Eliza prepared a squirrel stew dinner." This is a trend throughout the article — even the tone of the prose seems more storytime-like in places.
  • And how did I ever think this was encyclopedic?? Done. Admittedly, Marsh's level of detail in describing these events would probably convince a lot of editors into mentioning them.
• "tobacco-growing origins" is an opaque link.
  • Reformulated
• Careful about phrasing information in Wikipedia's voice. The interjection "... busy hunting and trading along village footpaths," is not neutral. Claiming they were busy is likely also original research as neither of the cited sources have it phrased this way. Statements like this should be attributed to their author or simply rephrased to be more straightforward. Several other sentences have similar issues.
  • Done. I hope I've attributed all of the presuppositions throughout the article, e.g. the cemetery or visiting Indigenous sites is important, Solomon was a noble woman. I also removed Having endured the traumatic journey, Labelle implies this, but I believe in letting the two paragraphs speak on their own.
• I'm uncertain of the statements "A religious vigor pervaded Solomon at school." and "She also began sharing the gospel ..." See my comment about the source.
  • They were also a bit, welll.. pretentious, removed.
• "He was likewise a widow." To my knowledge, widow refers exclusively to women.
  • Fixed
• "pioneers from all parts of the county" is an unattributed quote.
  • Integrated the quote and toned it down. I combed through the other quotes and fixed at least one more instance of this.

References

Citation numbers from this revision.

• The bundle in citation 1 is pretty confusing, as it's difficult to see where one reference ends and the next one starts. I would recommend keeping them in separate <ref>...</ref> tags and using a footnote to bundle if necessary.
  • I can't do much, as it is the result of {{inflation/fn}}, but I would agree it's a bit hard to discern.
• Newspapers.com and NewspaperArchive.com are considered archive sources themselves and don't need the additional |archive-url= or |access-date=.
  • Done
• Same goes for citation 42, which is a book source (sort of).
  • Done
• I would also prefer linking Newspapers.com and NewspaperArchive.com.
  • Done
• I have concerns with the reliability of Neely 1939. For starters, if the S. J. Clarke Publishing Company article is to be believed, the work was self-published; I don't see any evidence of Neely being an expert historian or biographer, which would make this source acceptable if it were the case. The section on Solomon also contains statements such as "But early in the 1840s something happened. A catastrophe befell the Wyandots", which comes off as highly unprofessional writing even for its time of publication.
  • I've gone ahead and removed this source. To give Neely some merit, she had a long career as a journalist for The Cincinnati Post; still, I couldn't find as many historical stories as I'd like. I thought this book inherited some reliability as being written by the Ohio Newspaper Women's Association, but this was a bit hasty. I haven't found really any news stories that commended them or detailed their activities beyond annual meetings. As well, I have not seen some of the book's claims anywhere else, and I would agree that the tone is quite romanticized. This is all to say, Neely does not pass the chopping block; thank you for pointing this out.
• Marsh 1984 has similar issues with self-publishing; Labelle citing it could lend it some credibility, though it is referred to as a children's book, which again casts doubt on how reliable the work is even considering the volume of field research that was conducted for it.
  • I would agree. Marsh is not fully writing for an academic audience, so I have to be cautious. There is the occasional line of dialogue, which isn't ideal, and the level of detail in describing the environment and wildlife is a bit suspicious at times. Still, in my opinion, the vast majority of information seems credible, and to boot, there are 24 footnotes, which is much better than nothing. This book is a crucial source, so it's an odd dichotomy. To make sure I've not gone overboard in its use, I've cut out almost all information that isn't mentioned in the two previous Croneis articles. He published the Telegraph-Forum and was at least a somewhat respected historian. As well, the two summaries are quite encyclopedic considering the source material.

Images

• Mother Solomon circa 1880.jpg, Mother Solomon signature.png, Wyandot Mission Church 1846.png, John Solomon.png, and Mother Solomon 1887.jpg are in the public domain, are appropriately tagged, and have relevant captions.

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

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

Reviewer: Kimikel (talk · contribs) 05:02, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Averageuntitleduser:: Please see my GAR below. Thank you for your contributions, and please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding my suggestions. Thank you! Kimikel (talk) 05:02, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

@Kimikel: I've responded below. Many thanks for the review. The suggestions for better phrasings are especially appreciated! Averageuntitleduser (talk) 05:32, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@Averageuntitleduser: Thank you for your prompt response; I like what you've done to go through and rephrase to make the article flow better. I've gone through myself and changed a couple minor things; with that, I feel like there's nothing left to discuss. I appreciate your contributions and congratulations! Kimikel (talk) 01:25, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Well-written

• you switch between calling her "Margaret" and "Solomon" for short throughout the article, one should be used consistently
  • Not done. I use "Margaret" to differentiate from John Solomon. I believe MOS:SAMESURNAME recommends this.

Lead

• "Two of their children were buried near the church." > remove to help flow
  • Partially done. I revised the sentence and it now seems less awkward to me. It is also now slightly built upon later in the paragraph.
• "her community succumbed to the Indian Removal Act and signed a" > the Indian Removal Act forced her community from its land, signing a
  • Partially done. Forgive my pickiness, but the construction of the sentence doesn't fully sit right with me. However, the more direct framing that "forced" implies has made an obvious improvement.
• "Many died of illness along the journey, and" > remove, doesn't tell us anything about Mother Solomon
  • Done.
• "the sheriff John Solomon" > sheriff John Solomon
  • Not done. I tend not to use false titles; just my personal preference.
• "she sang "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"" > she sang a Wyandot translation of "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"
  • Done.

Early life

• "Solomon only received her given name, one of Christian origin, during" > Solomon did not receive her given name, of Christian origin, until
  • Done. That makes a surprising difference!
• "who she became friends with" > with whom she became friends
  • Done.
• "Harriet Stubbs" > briefly introduce Harriet Stubbs somehow, like "missionary"
  • Done.

Wyandot removal to Kansas

• "Two children of their own were buried in the cemetery,[34] but they remained with a son and two daughters." > this kind of comes out of nowhere, there's no mention she even had children at this point. is there any more context you could put about her children beforehand? also specify that it's the church's cemetery.
  • Done. Hmm, the sources really only allow for a broad sentence about how many children they had in Ohio. I imagine this is sufficient, though.
• "alongside the remaining ones, these died in infancy" > this makes it sound like every one of her children, including the older ones, died in infancy, which doesn't make sense with the following sentence.
  • Clarified, I hope. "Infancy" was poor word choice. I've rephrased to state that none of her children lived past adolescence. Let me know if there is still some confusion here.
• "Even after returning to Ohio, the year she died, Solomon signed a document objecting to the removal of the cemetery's remains." > doesn't belong in this section
  • Moved.
• "Oregon emigrants" > are they people travelling to Oregon on the Oregon Trail? in that case they're Oregon immigrants. If they're leaving Oregon then they're emigrants.
  • Clarified, I hope. It seems the settlers who traveled the Oregon Trail are almost always called emigrants, but as demonstrated, that can quickly become contradictory.

Return to Ohio

• "The population meanwhile grew to 2,500.[42] Even so, a few earlier houses remained."> swap the order these sentences come in
  • I workshopped this paragraph to hopefully make it even more fluent. Let me know it still leaves you with suggestions.
• "Many children attested to being raised by her as adults, as late as the 1950s" > As late as the 1950s, many adults attested to being raised by her as children
  • Done. Much smoother! And I cut the "as children".
• briefly introduce William H. Gibson
  • Done.
• "Likewise, Solomon was the only Wyandot who had departed in 1843 in attendance." > remove likewise
  • Done.

Death and legacy

• "The pastor G. Lease" > Pastor G. Lease
  • Not done. Per above.

Verifiable

• Regarding the previous GAR, regarding Marsh 1984, I feel there's enough going for it to count as a reliable source for this review's purpose.

Spot check

1. 61: Verified
2. 45: Not verified; source doesn't say that the land 'was' put up for auction, just that an auction was planned. Might need to tweak that sentence somewhat

Done. This is fair.

1. 19: Verified
2. 66: Verified
3. 70: maybe I'm just overlooking it but I can't see where it says that they received it from the Wyandot County Museum

Removed. Good catch. I definitely made that connection too hastily when I first wrote the sentence.

Broad

• Besides the aforementioned lack of information about her children, no issues

Stable

• Stable

Neutral

• Neutral

Illustrated

• Images all are properly tagged and usable, contribute to the article, and have appropriate captions

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.