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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John Neal (writer)/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 7 October 2020 [1].

John Neal (writer) edit

Nominator(s): Dugan Murphy (talk) 02:23, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about John Neal (writer), an eccentric and influential American writer, critic, editor, lecturer, and activist who used speeches, magazine essays, novels, poems, and short stories between the 1810s and 1870s to advance his ideas concerning American literature, feminism, racism, and other reform topics. He has an impressive list of superlatives to his name, he lived an interesting life, and he's a real character to boot. I overhauled the article earlier this summer and it just went through a successful peer review. I think it meets all the standards for FA status at this point. Dugan Murphy (talk) 02:23, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Buidhe
  • I agree that the article is in general very high quality and must have taken a lot of work to write.
Thanks! --Dugan Murphy (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article is currently 76 kb readable prose, above the recommended WP:Article size, and reads even longer considering the large number of quotations, images of text, and so forth. This is not ideal for readability: it would likely take over an hour to fully read the article. I would recommend splitting content into sub-articles or trimming.
I agree. I'll move some content to sub-articles and/or trim. This is not done yet, but I am working on addressing this. Do you have an opinion on a target kb of readable prose? I read WP:Article size but I'm still not sure how much is too much while maintaining comprehensiveness. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think somewhere in the range of 50–60kb is ideal for comprehensively covering a topic without going into too much detail. (t · c) buidhe 05:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the article has now been sufficiently trimmed. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Instead of manually bolding headers (MOS:PSEUDOHEAD), level-4 subheadings should be used consistently in accordance with MOS:HEADING.
Done! Thank you for modifying a few of those headers for me. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Books should ideally be identified by unique identifiers such as ISBN or OCLC, to clearly identify a which version is being cited
Done! I didn't know about OCLC codes, so I appreciate you bringing that up. Many of the books in the Sources section are too old to have ISBN numbers. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Further reading and External links sections would benefit from trimming. As SandyGeorgia says, A Featured article should already be comprehensive, so that little other reading is needed. (Note that Wikipedia is not a catalogue of all existing works on a given subject.) In addition to the editorializing when describing works (The most comprehensive work on John Neal ever published.[citation needed][according to whom?]), since the article already seems very long and complete, are these works really a unique resource beyond the works already cited in the bibliography? The External links section needs even more trimming, in my opinion. (For example, I see no need for two separate sections for Selected works and Selected works available online). (t · c) buidhe 10:37, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There are multiple points within the above bullet point, so I'm going to break up my responses to them individually in the list below. I believe this below list addresses all of the points you make in the single bullet point immediately above:
  • Trimming Further reading: I'd like to discuss just a little more before I eliminate the Further reading section. WP:Further_reading says that "In articles with numerous footnotes, it probably is not obvious which ones are suitable for further reading. The 'Further reading' section can help the readers by listing selected titles without worrying about duplications." Since this article has 66 sources listed, I think a Further reading list highlighting which 6 of those 66 are most helpful is what the guidelines recommend. Do you believe WP:NOTDIR supersedes WP:Further_reading? --Dugan Murphy (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article doesn't hide the works in footnotes. If it just duplicates works listed in the bibliography, that is discouraged in MOS:FURTHER. I don't think the bibliography is too long to use as a reading guide, since you can easily search for which works include Neal's name in the title. WP:Further_reading is an essay. (t · c) buidhe 05:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Selected works and External links duplication: I see your point. I cut out the individual works listed in the External links section for two reasons. 1) I intend to eventually create individual articles for many of the the publications listed in the Selected works section and this will be the place to list them, and 2) many of the works in External links that are listed individually are already included in the listed collections like Project Internet Archive and Open Library. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • They could easily be combined, using such format as
  • Editorializing in Further reading: Done! I agree that those annotations need to be either cited or deleted, so I added a citation for one of them and deleted all the others. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 01:31, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources: Find a Grave is not a reliable source, see WP:RSP. The citation Neal December 1824, pp. 387, 388. does not link correctly. (t · c) buidhe 05:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have replaced the Find a Grave citation with a book citation and fixed the Neal December 1824, pp. 387, 388 citation. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Captions that aren't complete sentences shouldn't end in periods
  • Alt texts are quite lengthy
  • I just trimmed the whole thing. I hope it is a more appropriate length now. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I misread as "all texts," so I thought you were talking about readable prose. I have now trimmed alt texts for all images. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 15:40, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:John_Neal_by_Sarah_Miriam_Peale,_c._1823,_oil_on_canvas_-_Portland_Museum_of_Art_-_Portland,_Maine_-_DSC04059.jpg: we need the author and date for the original work to be on the image description page, plus a US PD tag; in the US reproduction of a 2D work doesn't garner a new copyright. Ditto File:William_Lloyd_Garrison_at_National_Portrait_Gallery_IMG_4392.JPG
  • I just added the author and original date to the image description and replaced the copyright tag. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:John_Neal_Signature.png: as above, the uploader wouldn't hold copyright to this - probably this would fall under PD-signature on Commons
  • File:John_Neal_Penmanship_Sample_1808.png: when/where was this first published? Ditto File:John_Pierpont_1821_by_Rembrandy_Peale.jpg, File:John_Neal_Portrait_by_Joseph_Wood_1819-1821.png, File:Old_Portland_City_Hall.jpg, File:John_Neal_Family_Portrait_1843.jpg, File:John_Neal_Photograph_1875.png, File:Neal_Dow_daguerreotype.jpg
  • File:John_Neal_Penmanship_Sample_1808.png, File:John_Neal_Portrait_by_Joseph_Wood_1819-1821.png, File:Old_Portland_City_Hall.jpg, File:John_Neal_Family_Portrait_1843.jpg, File:John_Neal_Photograph_1875.png: I see the original publication dates on their respective image description pages, don't you? I don't see where to add publication location. Please advise. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • You can add information about original publication to the source field. With regards to date: date of creation and date of publication are not the same thing - the tagging in use requires that these were published, not just created, before 1925. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:03, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Er. It looks to me like you've just copied the creation information, rather than actual publication details. I'll accept that the first of these was published as an ad there at that time, but I don't see anything supporting the publication claims on the others. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:49, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I guess I'm confused about what constitutes publication for a painting or a photograph. I'm looking at pre-1925 photographs and paintings included in featured articles (File:James G. Blaine - Brady-Handy.jpg, File:Edgar Allan Poe, circa 1849, restored, squared off.jpg, File:Edgar Allan Poe by Samuel S Osgood, 1845.png, File:Neal Dow daguerreotype.jpg, File:Mary Wollstonecraft by John Opie (c. 1797).jpg) and not seeing publication dates and places listed on any of them - just creation dates. Is John Neal (writer) being reviewed under the same criteria as those featured articles? Is it more appropriate for the paintings to bear a PD-Art-100 tag instead of PD-old-70-1923? Thank you for your patience as I wrap my head around this issue. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 20:20, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • PD-Art-100 doesn't cover status in the US, unfortunately. The technical definition of publication under US law is here. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:38, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • In that case, because I can't find anything to indicate when copies File:John_Neal_Portrait_by_Joseph_Wood_1819-1821.png or File:John_Neal_Photograph_1875.png have been made available to the public, I deleted the publication info I added to them and removed them from the article. I left File:John_Neal_Penmanship_Sample_1808.png in place because Neal made it for public display originally. I replaced File:Old_Portland_City_Hall.jpg and File:John_Neal_Family_Portrait_1843.jpg with Market Square Portland Maine 1874.png and John Neal Portrait Portland Illustrated.jpg for the same reason I removed File:John_Neal_Portrait_by_Joseph_Wood_1819-1821.png. I think that takes care of all the image issues. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 21:07, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:John_Pierpont_1821_by_Rembrandy_Peale.jpg and File:Neal_Dow_daguerreotype.jpg are removed from the article. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Jeremy_Bentham_by_Henry_William_Pickersgill.jpg needs a US PD tag. Ditto File:Mary_Wollstonecraft_Tate_portrait.jpg, File:The_Broadway_Tabernacle_(NYPL_Hades-165659-EM11603).jpg
  • File:The_Broadway_Tabernacle_(NYPL_Hades-165659-EM11603).jpg: copyright tag replaced. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Jeremy_Bentham_by_Henry_William_Pickersgill.jpg and File:Mary_Wollstonecraft_Tate_portrait.jpg are removed from the article. --Dugan Murphy (talk) 05:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:The_Dead_Pearl_Diver_by_Benjamin_Paul_Akers_2.jpg: is the given tagging for the sculpture itself, or the photo? Nikkimaria (talk) 20:11, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment - This has been open for almost a month without any declaration of support for promotion, and doesn't seem to be heading in the right direction at present. Therefore, I will be archiving it shortly and it may be re-nominated after the customary two-week waiting period. --Laser brain (talk) 02:00, 7 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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