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Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Peregrine Fisher (talk) 15:47, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

I"m nominating this because I think it meets the FA criteria. The is a co-nom with User:Carmarg4. It's been over a year in the making, with a big push in the last couple months. Also, it's a WP:VITAL article. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 15:47, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Comment. No problems with dablinks or deadlinks. PL290 (talk) 16:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Comment. Based on my calculation of readable prose, the article comes in at 81 kilobytes. This may or may not be a problem (see WP:SIZERULE) but it probably needs to be addressed. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:19, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

  • I think because of the status of Lincoln, it's OK to be extra big, but we'll see what others think. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:26, 14 September 2010 (UTC) It's the 989th largest article on WP, so people know. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:27, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
    • It's 68kb readable prose, using Dr.pda's script; if 54kb is okay for a battleship (Error: {{sclass}} invalid format code: 6. Should be 0–5, or blank (help)), I think that's fine for such a famous figure. ;-) The large overall size comes from the amount of references, sources, and external links. Ed  16:34, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
  • I read once that only Jesus Christ has had more books written about him than Abraham Lincoln. I know I have at least 20 books on Abe in my library. For such a personage, the length of the article should not be a problem. After giving it a quick review, if there is a demand to shorten it, a lot of the military stuff the generals did could be edited out. I say this as a Civil War nut and living historian with scores of books on the military aspects of the War. After all, the article is about Abe, not what the generals did. Thomas R. Fasulo (talk) 17:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments - very impressive work. Some things to be improved/addressed:

  • "Conducting the war effort" is a bit lengthy - suggest either splitting into 2+ sections or cutting some of the material
  • The number of one- and two-sentence paragraphs should be slightly reduced
  • "To facilitate this, Lincoln exercised unprecedented war powers, granted under the Constitution, including the arrest and detention, without warrant, of suspected secessionists in the thousands" - suggest rewording for clarity
  • "Under his leadership, the Union took control of the border slave states at the start of the war, and tried repeatedly to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond; when one general failed, Lincoln tried another, until finally Grant succeeded in 1865" - repetitious use of "tried", and "Lincoln tried another" isn't the best phrasing anyways
  • "His Gettysburg Address became an iconic symbol of the nation's duty" - I'm not sure what you mean by that, could you clarify?
  • Be consistent in the use of U.S. vs US
  • "He had an older sister Sarah (Grigsby) who died while giving birth at a young age" - suggest rewording for flow and clarity
  • "Lincoln later noted that this move was "partly on account of slavery" but mainly to land title problems" - is there a word missing here?
  • "Soon afterward his father remarried to Sarah Bush Johnston with whom Lincoln became very close and referred to as "Mother"." - grammar
  • "But he became increasingly distant from his father. He regretted his father's lack of education, and was not inclined to a vocation of hard labor as was requisite to their frontier life; although, he willingly took on all chores expected of him as a male in the household, albeit young, tall and thin" - reword for clarity and flow
  • "He was no committed laborer during his teen age years, with family and neighbors then referring to him often as lazy" - grammar
  • "consummating the engagement with Mr. L.." - is the double period present in the source?
  • "But see it through he did" - tone
  • "this eventually led Robert Lincoln to involuntarily commit her to a mental health asylum in 1875" - reword for clarity - the commitment was involuntary on her part, not his
  • Since he was a politician for most of his life, shouldn't that be reflected in the "occupation" listing in the infobox?
  • Why do you repeat the same quote twice in the final paragraph of "Early career"? Use the full quote and omit the first instance, or combine the two. Also, don't include a space between punctuation and footnotes
  • "this, despite strong opposition to the idea from both sides of the issue and its considered unworkability" - grammar
  • "The party favored economic modernization, including banking" - didn't the US have banks before this? Or do you mean "in banking"?
  • "Congress never enacted the resolution or even debated it; it got no reaction from the executive, or in the papers nationally, and it resulted in a loss of political support for Lincoln in his district; one Illinois newspaper derisively nicknamed him "spotty Lincoln.". " - run-on sentence, fix punctuation
  • "the new and prolific railroad bridges" - the bridges were prolific?
  • "The idea was never commercialized, but Lincoln is the only President to hold a patent" - why is President capitalized? Also, it's not correct to say the idea was never commercialized, it just wasn't pursued by Lincoln
  • Read through to check punctuation - there are a number of minor punctuation problems to be fixed
  • MoS recommends against using all-caps for emphasis
  • "that sang his praises" - tone
  • "collaborative story code" - what does this mean?
  • Consider splitting the nomination and election section from the main Presidency section
  • Why is "Term" capitalized in those section headings?
  • "At this convention, Lincoln's very loyal, though unorganized, campaign team emerged, in the persons of David Davis, Norman Judd, Leonard Swett, Jesse DuBois and others; and Lincoln received his first endorsement to run for the presidency" - grammar and clarity
  • "Lincoln's 1860 candidacy is held up by the slavery issue (slave on left) and party organization (New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley) on right." - make parentheses use consistent
  • "In terms of the actual balloting, Pennsylvania proved to be the linchpin" - explain further
  • "It did the leg work that produced majorities across the North. It produced tons" - repetition and tone
  • Is "Congress" or "the Congress" correct? You use both
  • "En route to his inaugural" - his inaugural what? Do you mean his inauguration?
  • Still need some general copy-editing for clarity and flow
  • "bi-partisan" or "bipartisan"?

More to follow tomorrow. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:54, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

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