Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by NancyHeise (talk | contribs) at 01:23, 27 April 2009 (→Luther). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Hi. You are welcome to leave messages here. Unless you say differently, I will respond to your messages here or in the appropriate article's talk page.

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Calvin

		The Original Barnstar
		For rewriting John Calvin with excellence in both style and content. --Flex (talk/contribs) 16:39, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Please see User_talk:Flex#New_topics. --Flex (talk/contribs) 15:51, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Huzzah! It made it to FA. Congrats! --Flex (talk/contribs) 16:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The first step - identify the problems

Over on my talk page, you mentioned "I just wish I can write better the *first* time. I guess I have to keep practising." If you want, I can go through the Calvin article and make a list of problems that recur in your writing. That way, you will know what to watch out for. I know, for example, that I am a verbose writer and I am constantly on guard against that. If you already know your personal writing demons, we can move on to the next step. Awadewit (talk) 02:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I would really appreciate that. Thanks again for all your help! If I do it right the first time, then the articles I bring to FAC would be less painful for the reviewers. I know one major problem I have is that I use the passive a lot (a holdover from days when I had a rather political job). I will create a sandbox for the list. --RelHistBuff (talk) 08:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I have played in the sandbox. :) By the way, do you have a good writing handbook? I could recommend a few, if you don't. I usually advise my students to pick one or two issues to work on at a time, as it is impossible to improve ten things at once. So, for example, you could work on "wordiness" while you write the next two articles or something like that. Let me know how else I can help. Awadewit (talk) 03:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

(See above) I'm always looking for things to help me help my students. If you have some favorite handbooks, I'd be interested in knowing which they are... Ling.Nut 04:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I like the Bedford for teaching. :) It is organized well for what and how I teach. Awadewit (talk) 12:37, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Mozart: thanks

Thank you for your support and help in getting Mozart in Italy to Featured status. I appreciate your help in the effort to expand the encyclopeadia's featured classical music content. My next music project, for later this year, is likely to be List of operas by Richard Wagner, including not only those we know all about, but his many aborted projects, too. Brianboulton (talk) 11:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Nav box size and location

Please comment on this debate here. We are attempting establish a consensus on wide, vertical nav boxs. -- Secisek (talk) 19:34, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Joseph W. Tkach

If you would like to see Joseph W. Tkach appear on the main page at WP:TFA, I would head over to WP:TFAR and learn the roles over there. His birthday is a good day to nominate him for.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:16, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

March 16 is now open for main page nominations if you are interested.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 09:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I think I will let Raul decide when it goes up on TFA. There are many notable articles that ought to get there first and if he see a spot to slip in a religion-related article (for diversity reasons) then that would be fine with me. --RelHistBuff (talk) 09:53, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I think you are misunderstanding. If you want this on the main page, nominating it at WP:TFAR will surely get it there. Raul will almost surely accept it unless he just posted a bunch of religion articles. You should nominate this at TFAR.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 17:03, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Philibert Berthelier

I have been dealing with some of the red links in the Calvin article (Nicolas Cop, Loci Communes, Edict of Coucy, etc.). AFAICT, Philibert Berthelier the younger is not an important historical figure and has near-zero hope of actually getting a WP page. Hence, I propose we unlink his name, move his father's article back to Philibert Berthelier, and make a brief mention of his son in that article. What do you say? --Flex (talk/contribs) 16:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't mind either way. The only reason I created the disambiguation was because of the comment from Ling.Nut. I am by nature an inclusionist though and one can never tell if a stub could grow into something. I can create a stub from the info in the sources. --RelHistBuff (talk) 17:11, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

If you think there's a non-trivial chance that it could grow, go ahead and create the stub. If not, I say we unlink and move. --Flex (talk/contribs) 18:34, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Hilary of Chichester

Can you do me a major favor and look over Hilary and see what context is missing? He's lining up for his run at FAC and I *think* I caught all the context, but I'm not sure, so need some help spotting things that aren't explained well. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:42, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

OK, will do. I will be off on vacation tomorrow and I will take a paper copy (and a red pen) with me. Hope you can wait a week? --RelHistBuff (talk) 14:49, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

He's behind Ealdred (archbishop) so it'll be a bit. I know the prose is still rough with Hilary, but I'm still hunting for missing bits, that's the main thing (although copyediting won't be sneezed at either!) Hilary has some time ... Ealdgyth - Talk 14:53, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

GA review of Theology of Huldrych Zwingli

I've reviewed the article and left notes on the talk page. I've put the nomination on hold for seven days to allow the issues to be addressed. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, here, or on the article talk page with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth - Talk 03:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

1f

• Finis. The "it reflects a preference..." structure I just posted is the best I can think of. Ling.Nut

nobody knows

• nobody knows that "survey" means "comprehensive". The nominators are not Awadewits; they are ...let's say.. not Awadewit.. ;-) Ling.Nut.Public (talk) 09:41, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages would be well-served if there were more like her. --RelHistBuff (talk) 11:05, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I scratched my support for #2 and added a #3. Cheers... Ling.Nut.Public (talk) 11:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

John Calvin

Thank you for your note; I have modified the assessment to "high", which seems fair enough. On fr.wikipedia.org, the assessment is "top"; de.wikipedia.org does not seem to use such a scale on the discussion page, but I doubt anyone can pretend that the subject "fills in more minor details", as indicated by the importance scale of Misplaced Pages 1.0. Cheers, Schutz (talk) 09:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Luther

I think you know my feeling about the article, which is that it will always be vulnerable to the ocasional earthquake and the consequent damage. I watch the article because Luther is seminal to the historical period I'm interested in, but I actually find Luther a baneful character and become depressed if I spend too much time in his company. I also do not enjoy reading the more theological books about Luther, partly because I haven't the skills to tell what is objective analysis and what is "Lutheran" scholarship. However, I'm probably too timorous; and your track record makes you well qualified to attempt the task, if, as I sense, you'd really like to.

I have some biographies, such as Oberman, Brecht, Bainton, but I must say that I haven't found one that convinced me (they all seem strikingly badly written to me). I'm willing to be a sounding board if you undertake this task. If you do, I'd strongly advise you to get User:Slim Virgin onside in advance. She is an exceptionally good content editor (see Rudolf Vrba, which she wrote with User:Jayjg, in my opinion one of the best articles on Misplaced Pages). If you explain to her what you propose to do and how, I'm sure we could avoid the opposed camps problem the article sometimes fell into in the past. In other words, if there are to be thrashings out about interpretation and due weight, better they take place in a managed process of overhauling the article rather than randomly. qp10qp (talk) 16:07, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Relhistbuf, you once commented to me that you did not think a religion article could pass FA. I propose some changes to the FA process that might make it more fair to religion articles. First, I think that opposers need to be required to state their reason for opposing based on the FA criteria that they think the article violates and provide a source that supports their reasoning for opposing. Second, I think that opposing editors who are known to follow the article's creator around and harrass them should not have their oppose counted unless they have done the first suggestion. An article should not be failed because some people gang up on someone and post ridiculous comments that the person can not reasonably address. NancyHeise 01:23, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Featured article review/Witold Pilecki

Please see my comment - the unreliable online ref has been mostly retired. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added another couple of sources to the article and used them to back up about 7 of the cites to the IPN website. As it stands now, pretty much most of the information starting with the founding the Secret Polish Army, through Auschwitz (which is the key part of his life story that accessible English language sources focus on) until the end of the war is pretty well backed up by sources other than that one website. The main section which relies on IPN extensively is his early life, which accounts for about a third of all those IPN citations. This is mainly because Western/English sources understandably write about what he is best known for - his wartime activity, being a voluntary prisoner in the concentration camp, intelligence reports, etc. - and skip a lot of the early biographical details that aren't as exciting - for that, in addition to IPN, we would also have to find harder to obtain Polish sources. But exactly because that part of his life isn't as exciting as what came after, the early life is not really controversial and I'm not sure if it really needs extra sources (in addition to IPN) to back it up. Basically, I'm wondering how much extra sourcing - and where - is needed here, to retain FA status. Thanks for taking time with this and I very much appreciate a response.radek (talk) 07:46, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Bucer prose

Will look at it this evening. Brianboulton (talk) 17:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

(Later): I have read the first few sections. On my private prose crapometer, which runs from 0 (perfection) to 10 (irredeemable shite), I reckon this article to be around 3.5, which is better than most Misplaced Pages aricles but a bit too high for FA. Here are just a few examples of things that need attention:-

• "Almost nothing is known about Bucer’s mother. It was likely that he attended..." Phrasing needs adjustment
• "By the time he completed his studies in the summer of 1507, he was able to read and speak Latin fluently and in the same year, he joined the Dominican order." Punctuation problems. In fact, numerous sentences seem to me to be oddly punctuated, with commas strangely placed or omitted.
• "Sensing the potential danger, Bucer formally wrote his will in the form of the aforementioned inventory of books." Meaning unclear
• "In 27–29 December..." "In" seems wrong; "During...", possibly?

So although I wouldn't use the same robust terms as your FAC reviewer I'd say yes, the prose could do with a general copyedit. And in answer to your forthcoming question, I'll do it, but it may take a few days as it is quite a long article. Let me know if you want me to go ahead. Brianboulton (talk) 21:34, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I have copyedited up to the beginning "Colloquies" section. I have to break off now, but hope to finish some time on Saturday. In the Early life section I have done some rearranging, with the result that some of the text has become separated from its citation – you may need to attend to this. I'll let you know of other problems when I've done with the copyedit. Brianboulton (talk) 18:17, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks you! Considering all the work you have done, I think you were being overly generous with the points you gave me. I think the scale ought to be reversed i.e., I should being closer to the crap side! --RelHistBuff (talk) 21:37, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

OK, I have finished my copyediting work. I have several concerns:-

• Particularly in the latter part of the article I sometimes got the sense that the words I was reading were a direct quote. For example the phrase "to edify as many people as possible and offend no one" doesn't sound like your paraphrase. Other examples: "to make his design for the kingdom of Christ come true", and the very last sentence of the article. You have used direct quotes very sparingly; can you confirm that the prose generally, and phrases I've quoted in particular, are sufficiently different in form not to warrant direct attribution to the sources?
• I have removed and reworded some obvious POV expressions, but there is still a lingering of editorial opinion in parts of the article. It may be worth your going through again, to ensure that the neutral voice is present throughout.
• This: attack France is a clear example of WP:easter egg linking. Some other piped links might also be suspect.
• Some of the extend footnotes contain information which might beneficially be included in the article.
• The bigamous marriage paragraph looks out of place in the Colloquies section. It is chronologically correct to have it here, but this information stands out from the rest of the section. Is there a way in which the circumstances of Philip's bigamy could be more closely related to the colloquies?
• After my detailed reading of the text I'm inclined to think the lead section should be expanded a little, if it is really to serve as a summary of the whole article.

You would be well advised to read through and make certain that I have not changed or corrupted the meanings through over-enthusiastic copyedits. Please feel free to revert anything which you don't like. Brianboulton (talk) 17:10, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• Re archiving, you are probably right about it being shelved early, but wouldn't it be better to address all issues raised before re-nominating? Johnbod (talk) 21:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)