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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/John Tyndall (politician)/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 promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 19:20, 30 November 2017 [1].

John Tyndall (politician) edit

Nominator(s): Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:35, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about one of the most prominent fascists in British history, a man who went from an involvement in various Neo-Nazi militia groups in the 1960s to becoming leader of the National Front in the 1970s and the founder of the British National Party in the 1980s. Although Tyndall is dead and the parties that he was involved with now drift around in political obscurity, he remains a central figure in the history of the British far-right, ranking alongside Oswald Mosley and Nick Griffin. The article is particularly topical given the recent media interest in fascist and Neo-Nazi groups in both Britain (particularly National Action) and the United States. It has been a GA for some time and I believe it meets all of the FA criteria. Midnightblueowl (talk) 11:35, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Suggest scaling up the map
  • Captions that are complete sentences should end in periods
  • File:John_Tyndall_BNP.jpg should use {{non-free biog-pic}} not the historic images tag, and FUR should be expanded
  • File:Mein_Kampf_dust_jacket.jpeg: based on publication date PD-US would not apply
  • File:George_Lincoln_Rockwell.jpg: not-renewed tag is not needed, Navy tag suffices. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:34, 30 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review edit

  • Ref 221: I'm not too happy about having to accept an avowedly racist publication as a reliable source. I suppose that as it's only used to cite the date of Valerie Tyndall's death it's OK, but I'm uneasy
  • This is an issue I also grappled with when working on this article. However, it seems that Valerie Tyndall's death was only covered on far-right websites; she was insufficiently notable for the mainstream press to take attention. Thus, we are left with either using such a source, or having no source at all. I'm happy to follow the consensus on this. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:22, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Refs 222–224 require publisher information
  • In Sources, "BBC News" should not be italicised
  • In both cases, BBC News is listed as "website" and therefore italicises automatically. Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:22, 3 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "BBC News" is an organisation that publishes a website, not a website in itself. You can use the "publisher" field in the template, to eliminate the italics. Brianboulton (talk) 22:41, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • But is the website itself not also called BBC News? No matter, I've switched "website" to "publisher" anyway, so the italicisation has now gone. Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:47, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The missing isbn for Taylor 1982 is 978-0-333-27741-6
  • On isbns generally, the 13-digit form is preferred, and can be obtained by using this converter.
  • Ah, you've shown me that link before - I will try and remember to use it before nominating articles at FAC in future! I've formatted all the ISBNs to the 13-digit form in this article. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Subject to the above, all sources appear of appropriate quality and are in consistent format. Brianboulton (talk) 23:45, 2 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

General comments from Brianboulton edit

I'm working through the prose – I've done the "Life" sections, "Policies and views" to come. Many of the comments are nitpicks; I've made a few unimportant edits to the article itself. Here are my comments to date:

Lead
  • Overall, I think the lead is somewhat overdetailed and therefore too long. I've drafted a shorter version for you to consider, here - losing about 25% of the wordcount.
  • I don't personally find the lede to be excessively lengthy; it is already at least two or three lines shorter than the more important political biographies that I have brought to FAC in the past (Lenin, Mandela, Biko etc). I'm worried that some of the proposed removals are too important to lose; for example, his creation of Spearhead, likely the first Neo-Nazi terror group in the UK, would be lost from the lede. However, I have tried trimming down the prose at various points in the lede to shorten it (scrapping "newly established" etc) and have acted on some of the proposed changes (removing the name of the NF factions etc). Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:00, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "in 1957 he co-founded the National Labour Party (NLP) with John Bean; an explicitly "National Socialist" (Nazi) group". The semicolon isn't quite right here. A slight rephrasing: "in 1957, with John Bean, he co-founded the National Labour Party, an explicitly "National Socialist" (Nazi) group" – eliminates the semicolon
Youth
  • Describing Tyndall's O-level results as "fairly moderate" is surely over-generous. I'd say "substandard" (and that's still generous)
  • Copsey, who we cite here, refers to "a moderate three O-levels". This is a difficult issue to resolve. We could be rid of "fairly moderate" altogether, but then readers may not be familiar with how impressive (or unimpressive) three O-levels were. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:36, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A member of the Royal Horse Artillery, during the service he rose to the position of lance bombardier." Lance-bombadier is a rank, not a position, and it needs a hyphen. Also, "rose to" suggests attaining some promotional height; in fact it's a one step promotion of no special achievement. The words "during the service" are unnecessary. I'd simplify to "Serving with Royal Horse Artillery, he achieved the rank of lance-bombardier."
  • Thanks for clarifying these points (as you can probably tell, my knowledge of military matters is zilch). I've gone with your proposed wording. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:11, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does Hitler need the description "the late Nazi leader"? Universally understood, I'd say.
  • I'd have thought so, but you never know. Is Hitler as well known in, say, Indonesia or Zimbabwe as he is in the West? And will he be as well known to readers in thirty or fifty years time as he is to us today? I find it best to cover our bases in a case like this. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:09, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The National Labour Party and the first British National Party
  • "the secondary school teacher Colin Jordan" sounds as though he was The One. I'd prefer the formulation you used with John Bean, which would be "Colin Jordan, a secondary school teacher".
  • "Tyndall briefly left the NLP" – any reason given for this?
  • No great detail is given in the sources, but I think that it was mostly just interpersonal differences. Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:19, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In April 1961, Tyndall published a pamphlet that he had written..." – you could lose the last four words
  • "Both Bean and another senior member, Andrew Fountaine, were concerned..." You need to insert "BNP" after "senior", to clarify that Bean and Fountaine wwere not members of Spearhead.


The National Socialist Movement and Greater Britain Movement
  • "20 April 1962" was the anniversary of Hitler's birthday.
  • In the sentence "The police then raided the group's London headquarters, with its leading members brought to trial at the Old Bailey..." the word "with" is not an appropriate connector, dubious grammatically. It should be something like "The police then raided the group's London headquarters, after which its leading members were brought to trial at the Old Bailey..."
  • For what it's worth, Jordan's WP article deals with the Dior marriage rather differntly: "In October 1963, while John Tyndall was still in prison, Jordan, who had just been released, married Tyndall's fiancée, Françoise Dior". Not cited, and probably wrong, but I thought I'd mention it.
  • Thanks for pointing that out. I followed the citations for this article, so I'm not really sure what the Dior article was using as its basis, but if in future I find any RS offering a different explanation of these events then I shall make sure to amend this article. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:59, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "arguing that he "still had a lot to learn" – probably needs "then" after "that"
The National Front 1967–80
  • "This proved more successful, for the LEL..." Without a comparison, "more" is redundant. And "for" would be better as "as"
  • Some dodgy capitalisation, e.g. "Vice Chairman", "Chairman", "Directorate", none of them justified in my opinion. There may be other examples in the article which I haven't picked up.
  • I've gone through the article and changed these to lower-case spellings. Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:07, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "This NNF" – "The NNF"
Establishing the British National Party
  • No issues
Growth of the British National Party
  • I'm not sure how inviting William Pierce to speak was a counter to the influence of Combat 18
  • As I understand it, it was an attempt to prove the BNP's 'militant' credentials by having such a speaker, thus trying to undermine C18's claims to being the truly militant group, as opposed to the 'softy' BNP. Should I make this clearer in the actual prose? Midnightblueowl (talk) 16:37, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Tyndall stood as the BNP's candidate for Bow and Poplar, there gaining 3% of the vote." – some unnecessary verbiage there: "Tyndall stood in Bow and Poplar, gaining 3% of the vote" will do. Likewise, in "Tyndall stood as the party's candidate in the East London constituency of Poplar and Canning Town", you can lose "as the party's candidate".
  • Numbers expressing quantities require a comma after the "thousand" digit, e.g. 2,500 not 2000. I've dealt with a couple of earlier ones.
  • "used instead by Tyndall for personal uses" is awkward. Perhaps "expenses" in place of "used"?
Final years 1999–2005
  • No issues

More later. Brianboulton (talk) 22:51, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

My remaining points:
Policies and views
  • "openly approve strongly" – do we need the second adverb? It reads clumsily.
  • Third para, first sentence: "or not" is redundant
Race and nationalism
  • The words "biologically racist" should not be duplicated in the first line. Thus: "Tyndall had "deeply entrenched" biologically racist views,[175] close to those of Hitler and Leese".
  • The word "for" that begins the quotation should be deleted as it interrupts the prose flow.
Views on governance
  • "This Prime Minister could be dismissed from office in a further election that could be called if Parliament produced a vote of no confidence in them". I think "passed" rather than "produced". Also, the use of "them" as a gender-free singular pronoun is questionable grammatically. Nothing would be lost by deleting the last two words.
  • "He believed that the apartheid system of racial segregation utilised by these countries should be retained forever" – "these countries" being South Africa and Rhodesia. Although both countries practised racially discriminatory policies, I don't think that the Rhodesian system amounted to "apartheid" in the South African sense, in which black Africans were not considered as part of the nation but as citizens of so-called "homelands". Deleting "apartheid" from the sentence, and pluralising "systems", would resolve the problem.
  • Yes, Rhodesia's system was different from South Africa's apartheid in certain respects. I will make amendments as per your suggestion. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:53, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Social views
  • I just wonder why the use of single quote marks in line 2?
  • No idea, perhaps an error on my part. I will change this to double quote marks. Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:53, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conversely, the quote-within-a-quote in the penultimate para ("what's he on about?") does require single quotes.

Overall, this is an excellent article, a fine model for political biographies despite the repellant nature of the subject. I'm happy to support when the above points have been answered. Brianboulton (talk) 17:28, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support now added. Well done. Brianboulton (talk) 21:12, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Vanamonde edit

I reviewed this in detail at GAN, and am comfortable with the changes made since then. FWIW I am not to familiar with British politics, but have worked on articles on a number of controversial political figures. This is a fine article on a difficult topic. Vanamonde (talk) 13:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Wehwalt edit

An interesting read. Here's the first tranche, to the end of the biographical section.

  • "His paternal family were British Unionists living in County Waterford, Ireland.[4] and had a long line of service in the Royal Irish Constabulary.[5]" Some issue with a sentence fragment here. If you're cutting the full stop after "Ireland", or replacing it with a comma, I might change "and" to "who"
  • "as the anniversary of Hitler's birthday" I might simply say "as Hitler's birthday". The reader will know Hitler was dead.
  • I added "anniversary" in response to one of the comments above; I think it does help keep things clearer, lest some readers know nothing about Hitler or Nazism. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:59, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The new NF initially excluded Tyndall and his GBM from joining, concerned that he may seek to mould it in a specifically Neo-Nazi direction," shouldn't "may" be "might"? As I see another instance later in the article, it may be an ENGVAR thing.
  • "the former GBM soon rose to become the most influential faction within the NF, with many of its members rapidly rising to positions of influence." the "rose/rising" is a bit of a clash. I might change "rose to become" to "became".
  • "and Tyndall again met with Jordan in Coventry in 1972, there inviting him to join the NF." I'm not sure the "there" is really needed.
  • (Interjection) Personally, I'd replace "there inviting" with "and invited", as being unquestionably correct. Brianboulton (talk) 20:43, 11 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "in the East London town of Millwall" Is Millwall a town?
  • Probably not the best term with which to describe it; switching to "neighbourhood". Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:01, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just a couple more:
  • "as a way of hoping to appeal to the masses." I understand the authorial voice doesn't want to get to close to the point of view, but "seeking to appeal to the masses"or similar is certainly easier on the eye without getting hands dirty.
  • I've gone with something altogether different: "in its public appeals". I'm not really sure that reference to "the masses" really was necessary here, so we can be rid of it. Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:09, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "He argued that Britain should establish a White Commonwealth bloc, calling for a better relationship with South Africa and Rhodesia.[207] He believed that the systems of racial segregation utilised by these two countries should be retained forever.[208] He claimed etc, There;s a but if a drumbeat in the he argued he believed etc that I'm not sure I like. I'd try to break it up a bit.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:09, 13 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks for your comments, Wehwalt. I have acted on all of them. Midnightblueowl (talk) 15:09, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support A better article than the subject deserves.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:15, 16 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment: Glancing through the article, it seems that we have quite a lot on Tyndall's own views, and quite a lot about his reputation in far-right circles. Is there perhaps a danger that we are looking at him through too narrow a lens? Perhaps I've missed it, but should we be talking about how he was perceived in wider political circles, or by the press and general public? I am not recusing, nor opposing, nor saying that anything is missing here, but I would just like to clarify this point: are we putting him into a wide enough context? Sarastro1 (talk) 22:28, 23 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can see your point; unfortunately the reliable sources produced by academics and journalists specialising in the far-right do not seem to give much information on how Tyndall was received in more mainstream sectors of British society. It may be that he was largely ignored by the mainstream. Midnightblueowl (talk) 10:56, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, but I think we need something. The Telegraph and Guardian obituaries have fragments on his general popularity, even if its just figures from general elections. Even a sentence is better than nothing. Sarastro (talk) 18:45, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Sarastro1: - I've established a short section at the end of the article titled "Reception" which deals with how he was received in both the far right and in wider politics. I have also added a brief mention of this reception in the final paragraph of the lede. I certainly think it's an improvement. Midnightblueowl (talk) 13:00, 30 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comments: Not all the images have alt text. While alt text is not an explicit requirement at FA, I always feel that we should demonstrate best practice. Also, the duplinks need to be checked as we seem to have quite a few and I can't really see that we need them all. This tool will highlight any duplication but I will leave it to you which need to be kept. But neither of these issues are enough to hold up promotion any longer. Sarastro (talk) 19:19, 30 November 2017 (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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