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Mandell Creighton

Nominator(s):  – iridescent 21:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/Mandell Creighton/archive1
• Featured article candidates/Mandell Creighton/archive2

I am nominating this for featured article because... while it may seem that there are lots of bishops at FAC, there are actually very few, and virtually no recent ones. In my opinion, this says as much as anyone would be likely to want to know about this comparatively obscure bishop and historian (best known for prompting one of the most overused quotations thrown into Misplaced Pages arguments, and I'd wager that 95% of those quoting it don't know where it came from), without going into unnecessary detail. – iridescent 21:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. Alt text is present and is in good shape (thanks). The alt text for File:Bishop Creighton House.JPG should be shortened drastically in the interests of WP:ALT#Brevity. Eubulides (talk) 22:58, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
  • Agree, and have shortened it. The long text was because it was a direct cut-and-paste from the sister article on the house itself, where the architectural history is of major significance so needs to be given in detail. – iridescent 18:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

• Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Note that I did a "pre-review" earlier in this article's history, hunting for jargon. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

• Comment, I've done a cursory review of the image's copyright. Seems to check out. –blurpeace  00:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Support - but a couple of nitpicks from a fellow member of the "obscure bishops" club. (I'll convert you all, just wait and see!)

• you say Louise was born in Sydenham, and it's linked, but might point out it's in the UK even though her father was German.
• "In 1886 he was one of the group of historians who founded the English Historical Review, today the oldest historical journal in the English-speaking world, becoming its first editor; he also attended the 250th anniversary celebrations of Harvard University as the official delegate of Cambridge University, delivering a well-received lecture in Boston on the role of democratic institutions in the rise of modern universities." is one LONG sentence, any chance of breaking it up a bit?
• Give dates for Alexander's papacy either in the lead or in the main article?
• A wee bit of overlinking going on. Do we really need to link "glove", "tin can", "strike"?

I reviewed the article shortly after it began to take shape, and suggested some additional sources on the talk page. I'm quite pleased with this. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:16, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• As a watcher of my talkpage – and of my personal annoying FAC nitpick – you presumably know my views on the treatment of the difference between Greater London and the City of London, and Sydenham is a perfect example of this problem. Present-day Sydenham is an absolutely nondescript part of (relatively) central London, and to the modern eye describing it as being anything other than part of London looks as incongruous as the (equally accurate) "Chicago in Louisiana" or "Mobile in West Florida". However, it only became part of London in 1889, and Louise left it in 1872 so she can't be described as "from Sydenham in London". The cop-out "Sydenham, England" construction looks fairly grating in a British-English usage, as the ", England" format is never used (only ever the county). If you think it's really necessary to disambiguate it, I'd go with "Sydenham, Kent" as the least misleading option. Bear in mind that pretty much anyone with an interest in Creighton will be coming from either an Anglican Church or an Oxford University perspective, and in either case can reasonably be assumed to know the geography of England.
• Have split it.
• Do you think dates for Alexander's papacy are relevant? The pertinent fact here is "accused of being so cosy with the Catholic Church that he wouldn't be rude about any pope, even one devout Catholics found an embarrassing part of their history", not the dates of the pope in question. Including dates for Alexander would imply a need to give dates for figures such as Victoria who had far more of an impact on Creighton.
• There is a method to what looks like overlinking, even though it's not obvious. "Tin can" is wikilinked because I've intentionally used an Americanism, to avoid the disambiguation problem with the correct British English Tin. (A British reader would understand a "tin factory" to be a cannery; to the rest of the world, it would seem to be the tin equivalent of a steel-mill.) Porcelain is wikilinked because I don't think Giano's hypothetical 14 year old would necessarily understand the difference between porcelain and other ceramics, or the significance of the Midlands pottery industry. With porcelain and tin can linked, the third in that list of Worcester industries, glove, looks peculiar as the only unlinked member of the list (particularly in view of Misplaced Pages's convention that "unlinked entry in list" means "no article"). Strike is linked because again I'm not sure it passes the 14-year-old test, but I wouldn't object if anyone really wants it removed. – iridescent 19:52, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• If you don't want dates for Alexander, you might say in parenthesis something like Borgia pope or something to distinguish him. There are a lot of popes, and a bit of context will help the historically illiterate understand why it was so odd that Creighton didn't even condemn this pope. Most folks don't know any popes beyond Peter and John Paul II. As for the overlinking, it wasn't horrid, but it was a bit pronounced in that section at least. On Syndeham, how about "Syndeham, in England"? (Remember, this may hit the main page one day... oh, the joys!) Ealdgyth - Talk 20:02, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• Made it "Sydenham, Kent". "Sydenham in England" still looks like an Americanism to me (the equivalent of "Paris, France") - English place names just aren't ever described as being in England in British English. (I would assume because of the cultural presumption that anything important is in England unless it's otherwise specified; this is the place where "the island of Cyprus" really is used to disambiguate from Cyprus, London, and just look at the messy compromise on Washington (disambiguation), where the "real" Washington gets unique emphasis in compensation for allowing a couple of obscure places in some banana-republic near Canada to sit at the top of the list.)
• Have gone with "the notoriously corrupt Pope Alexander VI", which I don't think anyone would dispute. The idea that "Borgia pope" will mean anything to most of our readers is nice, but I think displays a touchingly misplaced faith. – iridescent 20:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
• At least a number of folks have a hope of connecting "Borgia" with something they heard once that was awful... even American's might manage that! (Although the image of Lucretia Borgia combined with a papal tiara is kinda scary. I also once heard someone equate Lucretia Borgia with Lizzy Borden...which seemed somehow fitting...) Ealdgyth - Talk 20:45, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

• Image review: No issues. Stifle (talk) 09:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments

I don't have enough time to do a proper review, but I did notice some things in the lead and first section that caught my eye.

• "gifted child?"
  • Not sure if this is an accurate paraphrasing of the ODNB article (which is cited). In my view, it is best not to use these somewhat vague but loaded terms.
• "nicknamed 'Homer'"
  • Again, the ODNB article (which is cited) makes no mention of it; the Covert biography does, but gives the reason for the nickname: his ability to construe (presumably Greek and Latin, although I'm not sure what age they were teaching Greek to schoolkids in those days). Without any explanation, "nicknamed 'Homer' by his classmates" is a little confusing: was it because he wrote poetry? was it because he was visually impaired? ...
• "First in Greats"
  • A first-class is not something you want to mention when the description of an education is so brief, especially for an academic. Compare, for example, other late-Victorian or Edwardian academics: A. N. Whitehead, G. E. Moore, or Bertrand Russel. Notice, in Maynard Keynes, a first is mentioned, but then the discussion of his education is quite leisurely.
• "Greats"
  • Not sure if at the time Creighton received his BA, "Greats" had that meaning. For much of the 19th century, it simply meant the final exam for a BA; the lit. hum. connotation is 20th century usage. Besides "Greats" is mostly college slang; not sure it belongs in an encyclopedia. Best to simply say, "first class BA degree in Literae Humaniores.
• General comment: Given the extent of the treatment in Covert, I think the childhood section can be expanded by another paragraph. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

• "Gifted child" and "nicknamed Homer" are, in my opinion, an entirely correct brief paraphrase of the original sentence in question ("From a very early age he was marked out as exceptionally bright; his school nickname was 'Homer' and when, with a certain inevitability, he won a scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, he was dubbed 'The Prof' - and this in a town stuffed with professors"). It appears on Sheppard, not the DNB; I agree that the reference to the DNB which is also in that paragraph makes it confusing what is being cited where; the DNB (which I use as a last-resort, as it's often inaccurate) is used solely in that section as a source for which school he attended.
• I have no idea what you mean by "A first-class is not something you want to mention when the description of an education is so brief". It's his only significant educational achievement, as he went straight on to teaching on graduation; not mentioning it would either mean no mention of his education at all, or a pointless "he studied at Oxford and graduated" with no further comment. I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove by pointing to three relatively poor quality articles (rated C-class, start-class, and a rather dubious B-class despite a prominent maintenance tag) as models for how one should be writing.
• "Greats" is the commonly used term. I've no strong objection if anyone insists in changing it to Lit Hum, but it would still need the explanation. Sorry, but you're just wrong with "it simply meant the final exam for a BA" in the period in question; the modern division into Mods and Greats was instituted in 1850. Possibly you're thinking of "Modern Greats" (aka PPE introduced in 1920.

I'm not going to enter into discussion with you, unless you actually have anything concise and valid to say; as per my previous discussions with you, I think your ramblings and "my way or no way" arrogance embody the worst of the FAC process with generally no useful purpose, and the time you waste far outweighs the occasional valid point. If you have brief, sensible points I'm more than willing to consider them, but FAC is, in my opinion, an increasingly meaningless process – thanks in no small part to your attempts to bully anyone who disagrees with you – and I'm happy to see this FAC fail rather than be drawn into wasting my time panning for valid points among one of your streams of consciousness. – iridescent 19:32, 18 October 2009 (UTC)