Talk:Virginia Argus and Hampshire Advertiser/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ammodramus (talk · contribs) 03:28, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll be glad to review what looks like an interesting article. I'm rather new at the GAR process, so it'll take me a little while to go through the article and evaluate it. I'll try to have a set of comments posted in a few days. Thanks for the work that you've done on the subject; I look forward to going through the article in detail. Ammodramus (talk) 03:28, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Review

• 1. Well-written

• Clear, concise prose; spelling and grammar OK

--The one-paragraph section "Notable stories" feels awkward. It begins with the publication of articles, then jumps back to the events described in the articles and works its way up to the articles' present, with a somewhat cumbersome "the aforementioned articles". The article as it stands also doesn't make it at all clear why a dispute over legal fees led to the publication of the articles. I'd suggest writing the section in chronological order and, per the broad-coverage GA criterion, expanding it based on the HistoricHampshire source. More about Jacob Green's escape, including his return to lead away still more slaves; Parsons Jr.'s attempt to snatch Green back, and his own apprehension by abolitionists; Col. Parsons's and Faulkner's expedition to Penna. to spring Parsons Jr.; some details about the legal-fees dispute; Col. Parsons's articles, including his charges that Faulkner had reaped a harvest of public sentiment for his pro-bono defense of Jr., then turned around and billed the Colonel.

• No copyright issues

--Spot-check of sources turns up no copyvios

• Complies with MOS:LEAD, MOS:LAYOUT, WP:WORDS

--The structure of the lead section feels a little random to me. I'd be inclined to break it into three short paragraphs: one with the most general information (place and years of publication; circulation); one about the Green affair, which should probably include the year, and which might also give a very brief description of Faulkner (e.g. "U.S. Representative Charles James Faulkner"), just so the reader knows why he's of interest; and one about Monroe, which could be ended with the paper's closing (and which might include his and Cooker's laying down the composing stick and taking up the sword, if we incorporate that into the body text). In rewriting, we should also make more use of pronouns, to avoid repeating the paper's name in several consecutive sentences.

• I've divided the introductory paragraph into three paragraphs, but I will be editing these further as I add related content to the article's prose below. -- Caponer (talk) 17:04, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

• 2. Verifiable with no OR

• 2a. List of references, in accordance with WP:FNNR

--OK

• 2b. Inline citations for: direct quotes, statistics, published opinions, controversial statements, BLP issues

--OK

• 2c. No OR

--Article states that Wm. Parsons "no longer needed the newspaper for income" and sold it to Monroe & Cookus. The passage in quotes doesn't seem to be supported by the two sources cited. The LOC source only lists the publishers by date; Maxwell & Swisher state that "A few months' experience satisfied Mr. Parsons that he did not need the paper, so he in turn sold it..." with no mention of Parsons's specific motives for acquiring or selling the paper.

• I've removed the specific mention of income from the sentence, as that must have been an unintentional assumption made while I was authoring that sentence. Thank you for the catch! -- Caponer (talk) 18:04, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

M&S are irritatingly non-specific about why Parsons sold the paper. I'm not sure if "no longer needed the newspaper" accurately summarizes their less than informative statement. "No longer needed" suggests that he needed it at one time, and that the need had passed. M&S's phrasing would also be consistent with, say, Parsons's acquiring the paper because he thought it might be useful, then finding out that it wasn't so. I'd be very unspecific about the reasons for his dumping the paper, since M&S shed so little light on them. My inclination would be to say something like "After a few months of ownership and experience, Parsons sold the newspaper to prominent Romney lawyer..." with nothing about his motives. Ammodramus (talk) 00:08, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

• Ammodramus, I concur with your rationale and your rewording of the sentence above, and I've incorporated that reworded structure within the article's prose. -- Caponer (talk) 15:43, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

• 3. Broad coverage: addresses all main aspects; stays focused

--The name suggests that the paper might've been formed by the consolidation of two newspapers: the Virginia Argus and the Hampshire Advertiser. The fact that many sources call it only "Virginia Argus" seems to support this hypothesis. Was this the case? Did it start out as the Argus and then absorb the Advertiser? Did A. S. Trowbridge expand an existing Advertiser? If nothing like that happened, could I suggest adding something to the article's lead sentence like "often referred to simply as the Virginia Argus", just to make it clear that you're referring to the whole paper when you use the abbreviated form elsewhere in the article?

• There is no evidence the newspaper was formed by the consolidation of two newspapers. I speculate (although there is no evidence to support my assertion) that Trowbridge borrowed the name of the defunct Richmond newspaper Virginia Argus and added Hampshire Advertiser to indicate the county in which it was published and its readership resided. -- Caponer (talk) 16:03, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

--Were publishers James Parsons and William Parsons related? Related to Col. Isaac Parsons and fugitive-slave-chasing nephew James Parsons, Jr.?

• James Parsons and William Miller Parsons were indeed related. As far as I can surmise from Parsons' Family History and Record (1913), James Parsons and William Miller Parsons were brothers, sons of James Parsons, who was the brother of Col. Isaac Parsons. This would indicate that the James Parsons who owned the Virginia Argus and Hampshire Advertiser was the same James Parsons involved in the Jacob Green affair. James Parsons, the father of James Parsons and William Miller Parsons and the brother of Col. Isaac Parsons, could not have owned the Argus from 1858 to 1859 as he died in 1858 from tuberculosis. This is what leads me to believe that the Virginia Argus was owned by his son James Parsons. I'm trying to find other corroborating evidence to support these assertions. -- Caponer (talk) 16:45, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

--The one-paragraph section on the Jacob Green event is too terse: see above for suggestions for expansion.

--Per Maxwell and Swisher, Monroe and Cooker "laid aside the pen and took up the sword"; presumably, on the Confederate side (per Monroe's WP article, at least). This should probably be noted in discussing the closing of the paper: at present, the article gives the impression that M&C were publishing right up to the time that the Yankees padlocked the place.

• Good catch! I've added the mention of Monroe and Cookus joining up with the Confederate States Army. It looks like the paper continued to operate until that August when the Yankees padlocked the place so to speak. -- Caponer (talk) 19:19, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

• 4. NPOV

--OK

• 5. Stable: basically, no edit wars

--OK

• 6. Images

--OK: two images, both with US public domain tags.

--Per WP:CAPTION, captions should be succinct; it's suggested that they be no more than three lines. Could these (particularly the Faulkner caption) be trimmed? Since Monroe and Faulkner are both identified and discussed in the text near the images, we don't need to describe them in detail in the captions. I'd personally be inclined to use their names alone, but brief descriptions wouldn't hurt.

• I concur with the suggestion to remove the lengthy descriptions from the captions, as the images now take up less room within the article, and because the information in the descriptions was already available within the article's prose. I've edited each image, so now the captions contain only the names of Monroe and Faulkner. Thanks again for the suggestion! -- Caponer (talk) 18:08, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• Some suggestions: not necessary for GA, but I think they'd improve the article:

--Is the intial "The" a part of the paper's name? At West Virginia State Archives, Miscellaneous Boxed Newspapers, I find it listed as "Virginia Argus"; other newspapers listed include "The Truth" and "The Evening Call", so they clearly don't automatically drop an initial "The".

• Upon further review, I do not believe that "The" is a part of the newspaper's formal title. I've modified this in the article. Shall I go ahead and move the article to Virginia Argus and Hampshire Advertiser? -- Caponer (talk) 16:03, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

--Would it be possible to find an image for the infobox? The paper's nameplate would be ideal; an image of a front page would also do.

• I'm working on acquiring an image of the newspaper's nameplate, but as this will involve a brief trip down to the Library of Virginia archives in Richmond, I may not be able to include it until after the article meets GA status. --Caponer (talk) 19:19, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

--The first paragraph of the "History" section feels awkward. It begins "The Virginia Argus and Hampshire Advertiser was established as a Democratic weekly newspaper in July 1850 in Romney by its founder, A. S. Trowbridge." "Established... by its founder" seems redundant, and the passive structure is cumbersome. How about something like "A. S. Trowbridge founded the Virginia Argus and Hampshire Advertiser as a Democratic weekly newspaper in Romney in 1850"? A sentence like that seems to get off the ground more smoothly. If you've got a bit more biographic information about Trowbridge (e.g. the year in which he moved from N.O. to Romney), it might be even better to arrange this chronologically: move him to Romney, then found the paper, rather than found the paper and then flash back to his move to Romney.

• I've modified the sentence to the structure suggested above, however, I've left in the following sentence detailing Trowbridge's previous whereabouts. Try as I might, I cannot find a timeline of his move to Romney from New Orleans. I wanted to include the little morsel about him being a prior educator from New Orleans, as there is really no other information about him. -- Caponer (talk) 15:51, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

--Since the "Notable stories" section concerns itself solely with the Green affair, I'd give it a more specific name. If we do that, we also don't have to justify the adjective "notable", which feels like editorializing.

• I've modified the section's title to "Jacob Green affair" as it deals with the Green affair exclusively. -- Caponer (talk) 15:51, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Please forgive the length of this; if I have good qualities, brevity is not among them.

Also, this is only my second attempt at a GAR. I've benefitted a great deal from mentoring by User:Quadell, who's tried to keep me on the straight and narrow. However, it's quite possible that I'm missing something or displaying excessive pickiness somewhere. If you think that the latter's the case, let's discuss it: while you're improving the article, I can be improving my knowledge of the GA criteria. Ammodramus (talk) 17:27, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

• Ammodramus, thank you for your above mentioned comments and suggestions. I'll try and complete each of these corrections within seven days for your re-review. Thank you again for taking the time to thoughtfully improve the article to Good Article status! -- Caponer (talk) 18:10, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply; I'm looking forward to the article's reaching GA status.

A detail that I hadn't noticed earlier: at present, the last sentence of the "Notable stories" paragraph is "Faulkner later served as United States Minister to France and as a member of the United States House of Representatives representing Virginia and West Virginia." This suggests that he wasn't elected to the US House until after the Green affair. According to his WP article, however, he was a member of the House from 1851-1859, so would have been serving at the time of the Green business (per HistoricHampshire source, Parsons Jr. nabbed in Nov. 1855, Col. Parsons billed in Sept. 1856, Argus articles published May 1857). Ammodramus (talk) 15:16, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Another good catch Ammodramus! I've added some more references to the article that I will be utilizing tomorrow when I'm able to sit down and begin the article's expansion and restructuring. I should be able to complete most of this tomorrow! Thanks again! -- Caponer (talk) 20:55, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

At this writing, we're almost there. The only thing I can see that still needs to be done is an expansion of the section on the Green affair. Ammodramus (talk) 21:50, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

• I'm working on it as we speak and I had should have it completed within the next 24 hours! Thank you for your patience and continued guidance--it's so very much appreciated! -- Caponer (talk) 02:13, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Ammodramus, I've finished expanding the section on Jacob Green. Please feel free to pare down as needed, as it is a bit lengthy! -- Caponer (talk) 05:41, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Done! I cut a bit of extraneous material out of the Green section, and did a few edits to clarify things. None of these edits are GA-critical, so feel free to revise them.

One minor detail that's a little unclear: Did Green originally escape from the Wappocomo plantation? If so, we might want to put the name in the first sentence of the paragraph, and change it to "the plantation" in the second sentence. But that's definitely not the sort of thing that's going to make or break a GA.

This has been an interesting article to work on, and I've also enjoyed some of your other articles to which it's linked. Your work on local history is commendable; we need a lot more editors doing that sort of thing in their neighborhoods.

Thanks, too, for being so receptive to my suggestions for the article. I was somewhat apprehensive about taking on the GAR process, and you've gone out of your way to make this early attempt work out well. I count myself fortunate to have picked this article so early in my GAR career. Ammodramus (talk) 18:30, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

• Ammodramus, the Jacob Green section flows so much better now! I can be needlessly verbose, so thank you for cutting out all the extraneous material and crafting that section so perfectly (as you did with the rest of the article!). Regarding Wappocomo, I found a source (Brannon) that confirmed that Col. Isaac Parsons owned and resided at Wappocomo plantation, but the sources that mention Green's escape do not mention Wappocomo by name. It would not be incorrect to say that he escaped from Wappocomo plantation, but I was reluctant to do so because it wasn't mentioned by name in the sources. Jacob Green was owned by Col. Parsons, which likely associates him with Wappocomo. Had Green been owned by another of the Parsons family relatives, he would be associated with one of their respective plantations, such as neighboring Valley View. I am so glad you found this and some of my other articles interesting! Hampshire County and the Potomac Highlands region of West Virginia have quite a unique history, and I continue to try and illustrate that unique history one article at a time! I don't get back there nearly as often as I'd like to! You have no need to be apprehensive about taking on the GAR process, as it seems to be a natural fit for you, and a good venue for you to share your expertise with those less polished editors like myself! I am very fortunate for you having chose my article, and I look forward to working with you again in the future! -- Caponer (talk) 01:59, 10 December 2013 (UTC)